A quarter-century after 10.8 million gallons of crude oil gushed from the Exxon Valdez and scarred Alaska's Prince William Sound, oil spill responders fear that another disaster looms in more remote Alaskan waters where ship traffic is on the rise, due in part to the North American energy boom.

The largest concern centers on the Arctic, where oil exploration and development is progressing in fits and starts, and Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands, a choke point on a major shipping route between North America and Asia. Both regions are expected to see increased traffic as summer sea ice disappears and producers of North American crude oil and coal look to export fossil fuels to Asia.

"You can't separate the two areas out, you have to look at both of them," said Leslie Peters, a project manager for the Aleutian Islands Risk Assessment. The assessment is a $3 million study of the potential oil spill threat to the region, funded by a settlement reached with the owners of a cargo ship that grounded near the Aleutian community of Unalaska in 2004 and spilled 350,000 gallons of fuel oil.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101519437

http://www.aleutianriskassessment.com/background.html