The SEA program was a multidisciplinary, ecosystem-level investigation of factors affecting recovery of pink salmon and Pacific herring in Prince William Sound, Alaska   following the 1989 oil spill.  Conceived in 1993, SEA was part of the restoration effort sponsored by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.

The 7 year program involved 13 coordinated research projects led by investigators from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Marine Science , the Prince William Sound Science Center , the Alaska Department of Fish and Game , the US Forest Service Copper River Delta Institute (CRDI) , and the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation

In 1997 the Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) recognized that the prototype models demonstrated by the SEA program represented potential tools for OSRI to develop and and use to identify best techniques for oil for oil spill prevention and response.

Several synthesis manuscripts on the project’s results were published in Fisheries Oceanography, Volume 10 (Suppl. 1), 2001

Although the project has concluded, much of the data and models are being incorporated into the EVOS Trustee Council Gulf Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) program and the OSRI Nowcast/Forecast observation and modeling system. This SEA website is no longer active but the Science Center continues to host this page for historical reference.