Officials with the unified command for the cleanup operation said assessment teams would survey specific areas of shoreline on Umnak Island East, Unalaska Island, Unalga Island and Akutan Island West.

While cleanup will focus on the oil on the beaches, Alaska Native corporation officials whose lands are affected continue to express concern over damage from spillage of at least 60,000 tons of soybeans. When the Selendang Ayu broke in two on Dec. 8, 2004, just offshore of Spray Cape on Unalaska, the vessel was carrying a large cargo of soybeans and approximately 470,000 gallons of fuel oil.

"Our major concern is soybeans, which sunk in large quantities to the bottom of the ocean, will kill the ecosystem there," said Ron Philamoneff, chairman and chief executive officer of Tanadgusix Corp., a diversified Aleut corporation with offices in St. Paul and Anchorage.

A spokesman for both the ship's owner and operator identified the companies hired to provide cleanup workers as Pacific Environmental, Bering Sea Eccotech, CCI and Trident Services Inc. Pacific Environmental is a national engineering and industrial hygiene consulting firm, with offices in Anchorage. Bering Sea Eccotech is a wholly owned subsidiary of TDX. CCI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bristol Bay Native Corp. Trident Services, with officials in Anchorage, provides personnel for a variety of oil field services, including spill response.

The area affected by the spill includes critical habitat for bairdi crab and salmon spawning streams.

Philamoneff said when he flew over the contaminated area in a helicopter in late March there were signs of discoloration in the water in tidal currents as a result of the accumulation of soybeans there.

"Our major concern is killing the ecosystem on the bottom of the ocean, and that's something the (state) Department of Environmental Conservation should be concerned about," Philamoneff said.

TDX officials are also concerned about the potential for piles of soybeans to block salmon spawning streams and of the environmental hazards of contaminated soybeans still on the beaches. Philamoneff said the soybeans he saw on the beach were mixed with contaminated seaweed and carcasses of birds killed by the oil spill, so foxes and eagles feeding on their remains could also be poisoned.

According to Howard Hile, the spokesman for the responsible parties, a survey conducted at about the same time Philamoneff was in the area showed there were no longer large piles of soybeans on the beaches. Hile was speaking on behalf of the ship's owner, Ayu Navigation of Port Klang, Malaysia, and the operator, IMC Shipping of Singapore.

"There is no plan for cleanup of the soybeans because there is not a need for it," Hile said. "The normal forces of nature have been at work all winter."

Even if the soybeans have left Unalaska, that does not mean the problems they can cause have also disappeared, Philamoneff said.

"If the soybeans are not on the beach any more, they are obviously migrating somewhere else," Philamoneff said. "The problem just shifted to another area, to someone else's beach."

Rick Steiner, a professor with the University of Alaska Marine Advisory Program, is also not convinced that the soybeans have significantly dispersed.

"It may be that the soybeans were further scattered offshore, but we still don't know the extent of seabed contamination of the soy husks," Steiner said. "It's typical of the responsible party from any spill to say it's not very bad. We need the on-scene commanders to say whether that is the situation or not."

Steiner said there is concern that the soybean husks collected on beaches and on the ocean floor may be complex carbohydrates, which are not readily digested by flounder, halibut, cod and other bottom feeders. These husks will be consumed by bottom feeders into the food chain and it is possible they will not be easily metabolized, possibly affecting the life span and reproductive abilities of fish and other animals that feed on them, he said.

Steiner said that while the soybeans are not as toxic to the environment as the fuel oil, the fact that soybeans are heavy in oil themselves needs to be considered. The released soybean oil would exert the same sort of physical effects as crude and fuel oil by oiling bird feathers and soaking into the fur of sea otters. Oil causes fur to start falling apart and diminishes its insulating ability, he said.

While the extent of the spill's damage is still yet to be fully known, Steiner said more needs to be done now to prevent the next disaster. "The bottom line is (the spill) was unnecessary, unacceptable. We can prevent such things. That is the challenge we face now. The problem now is not the Selendang Ayu. It's the next one."

According to U.S. Coast Guard officials, the casualties of the spill included some 1,609 birds and six sea mammals. Assessment teams also observed another 18 oiled sea mammals, but were unable to capture any of them for rehabilitation. In addition, only 29 of 781 oiled birds were captured for rehabilitation, and of those 29, only 10 were successfully rehabilitated, Coast Guard officials said.

"It seems to me, if you believe the statistics from the Coast Guard, that this was the largest marine oil spill anywhere in the U.S. in the past 15 years," Steiner said. "This is a big deal. I'm afraid (the responsible parties) are trying to low-ball this and pretend it is not a big deal, when it is."

Steiner said programs to improve the safety of shipping could be financed by nominal charges on cargo loaded across U.S. ports, with a fund managed by the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. The trust fund is managed by the National Pollution Fund Center, under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.

"We need to raise the bar on merchant shipping in the North Pacific, on improving the safety of it ... This is not rocket science," he said.

Steiner said the complete cost of cleaning up the environmental damage and wreckage of the Selendang Ayu could be more than $200 million.

Hile said that while the responsible parties have already exceeded the legal limit in payments for its liability for the cleanup, there is no risk of the cost exceeding the amount for which the vessel owners are insured.