Oil seeps from the ground and creates a sheen on the water's surface from a hole dug on a Knight Island beach in Alaska's Prince William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010. An estimated 21,000 gallons of spilled oil remains in Prince William Sound two decades after the initial devastation.

Robert (RJ) Kopchak, 62, a fisherman in Cordova, Ala. for 36 years, digs a hole on a Knight Island beach in Alaska's Port William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010. "It breaks my heart to see this," said Kopchak. "There's still (subsurface) oil everywhere. And if you dig, you get exposed. If you're a sea otter, you're digging here all day long."

Hawkins Island is shown in Alaska's Prince William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010. Oil still remains in the sediments of the surrounding islands 21 years after the Exxon Valdez spill.

Douglas Pettit, 58, a Cordova fisherman and former Marine, breaks down crying as he discusses how he wasted the last 20 years of his life waiting for the herring to return and for Exxon to pay him a decent settlement at his home in Cordova, Alaska on Tuesday, July 15, 2010. "We got really screwed. From the day that son of a bitch hit the rock, everything changed here," says Pettit, who used his $70,000 life savings as the down payment on a $197,000 seine fishing permit and boat shortly before the spill. "I didn't spill the oil, and I'm going to end up losing fricking everything," he said breaking down in tears. "I just wanted to fish, like my father and grandfather did."

Samples dated from 1989 to 2010 of oiled sediments from the Exxon Valdez spill are shown at the Prince William Sound Science Center on Tuesday, June 15, 2010, in Cordova, Alaska.

Kory Blake, 50, a Cordova fisherman who almost committed suicide in 2002, describes how he put a gun to his head during an interview at his home in Cordova, Alaska on Wednesday, July 15, 2010. He had to sell his house to make the payments on his boat and permits. "I figure I'll 'expire' before I retire," says Blake. "I want to warn the people in the Gulf about going down the same dark hole I did. Everything in their water that's good to eat is probably going to die. It's going to be tough for a long, long time."

A starfish is shown on a Knight Island beach during low-tide in Alaska's Port William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill left this beach completely covered in crude. An estimated 21,000 gallons of spilled oil remains in Prince William Sound two decades after the initial devastation. Whereas vast schools of silvery herring once supported a multi million-dollar local industry, the current herring population is still too depleted for commercial fishing. Sea otters, harlequin ducks, clams and mussels also have not fully recovered.

Blue mussels and barnacles are shown in the foreground as RJ Kopchak, 62, of Cordova, digs a hole on a Knight Island beach in Alaska's Port William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill left this beach completely covered in crude. Blue mussels were one the species hit hard by the spill.

Hawkins Island is shown in Alaska's Port William Sound on Wednesday, July 16, 2010.

A fisherman walks towards his house boat in Cordova, Alaska on Tuesday, July 15, 2010. The human toll of the Exxon Valdez disaster persists, especially in hard-hit Cordova, a fishing village that became an outpost of debt, depression and dry-docked boats.