Salvage crews since January have removed from the remains of the Selendang Ayu 127,784 gallons of intermediate fuel oil and 11,523 gallons of diesel, or about 30 percent of the fuel the freighter was carrying, Coast Guard Adm. James Olson said.

The rest - 321,052 gallons of fuel oil and an unknown amount of diesel - is presumed lost in the Bering Sea.

The Dec. 8 wreck of the 738-foot Malaysia-flagged bulk freighter is the worst fuel spill in Alaska since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Advertisement

The freighter had drifted powerless for nearly two days until running aground off Unalaska Island, where it split in half and spilled fuel into sensitive wildlife habitats and a tanner crab fishery. Six crew members were lost at sea when a Coast Guard rescue helicopter crashed into the water.

The spill closed the Makushin Bay tanner crab fishery and more than 1,606 dead birds have been recovered.

The winter operations phase began Monday after a salvage team removed "every ounce (of fuel) that we could," Olson said. During the winter phase, which is expected to last until April 15, there will be continued water quality monitoring and air surveillance, he said.

"Unless something major happens, we probably won't do anything until mid-April," Olson said.

Kurt Fredriksson, acting commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said shoreline oil removal was also being halted until spring.

Both Fredriksson and Olson told members of the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee they considered the response to the grounding a success, considering the remote location and the harsh winter sea conditions.

"I had my doubts that there was much we could do," Fredriksson said.

Others who testified at the committee hearing were less congratulatory. Rick Steiner, a professor with the University of Alaska's marine advisory program, said that he considered it a failure that Monday's discussion had to happen at all.

"There are certainly some success stories," Steiner said, but "I'd say the glass is about 95 percent empty and 5 percent full."

Steiner said a risk assessment needs to be conducted on shipping traffic through the Aleutian Islands and that a rescue vessel and tracking systems should be put in place.