Digital Extra

How the massive spill has damaged a precious marine resource

8/1: Plovers abandoning eggs in nests
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Biologists are trying to find out whether the winter oil spill at Moonstone Beach is responsible for a sudden downturn in breeding by the threatened species.

5/22: The nose knows: Oil is gone
NARRAGANSETT -- On the eve of the Memorial Day beach season opening, Michael Mulhare, a DEM supervising engineer, finds only one beach still harbors an oily smell.

3/21: Nature holds its own against an oily invader
Branches bared by winter were no match for the sun, which beamed through their fragile defenses to the footpaths below.

3/12: Fishermen ask state: Put us back in water
NARRAGANSETT -- Brian Handrigan had a simple solution last night for the crippling "spotlight" of attention showered on Rhode Island seafood since the North Cape oil spill.

3/6: Workers cut trench to clean oil-damaged pond
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- With residual heating oil from the North Cape spill trapped in the sands of Moonstone Beach and Trustom Pond, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service yesterday cut a trench between the pond and the sea to help flush the pond and wash away sand.

2/9: Was 'rescue' worth it?
NARRAGANSETT -- Immediately after the oil barge North Cape washed ashore three weeks ago, 102 oil-contaminated birds, mostly loons and eiders, were treated in a sophisticated rescue facility in the Narragansett town garage.

2/9: Combing the sand for answers
WARWICK -- To fishermen, nature lovers and tourist businesses, the North Cape oil spill provided a painful lesson in the risks of shipping petroleum.

2/8: Cleaned of oil, a duck takes to the water
NARRAGANSETT -- After all the sound and fury of the North Cape oil spill, all its destruction of wildlife and disruption of human lives, a common duck claimed a quiet victory over the disaster yesterday on the gray waters of Narrow River.

1/30: Only few oil traces remain in sound, URI biologist says
PROVIDENCE -- Little of the 828,000 gallons of heating oil spilled by the barge North Cape in Block Island Sound remains there, a University of Rhode Island marine biologist said yesterday.

1/30: Test results suggest oil spill won't kill life in salt ponds
Some of the first test results to come back on toxicity levels of the North Cape oil spill indicate that concentrations of oil in the South County salt ponds last week appeared to be just below the levels that would have caused widespread die-offs of marine life.

1/28: The lingering threat lies in a `blob' of oil below the surface
Day and night the big oil skimming boats swept back and forth on Block Island Sound. Helicopters buzzed constantly over the water to track the oil sheens. Contractors deployed miles of booms.

1/28: New lobster reefs, quahog beds may spawn from World Prodigy spill
Just as things are looking their worst for local fishermen, help appears to be on the way from an unusual source.

1/28: Lobsters die by thousands, perhaps lured to the oil
Thousands of dead juvenile lobsters littered the beaches near the grounded North Cape barge, perhaps drawn to the oil that it was leaking.

1/25: Scientists optimistic animal life is safe
NORTH KINGSTOWN -- Returning from a research cruise through Rhode Island's oil spill yesterday, scientists suggested that the animals most affected by the spill are humans.

1/23: Save the Bay sends crews to document disaster from Beavertail to Napatree
NARRAGANSETT -- Their job was to identify the casualties of the toxic enemy on the most unlikely of battlefields.

1/23: Up and down the coast, volunteers improvise to combat the demon
With only hours to plan and minutes to act, officials and environmentalists in Charlestown yesterday faced the westward drift of the deadly oil slick with an aggressive -- if not improvised -- plan of attack, as well as with a touch of ingenuity.

1/23: Scientists assail part of cleanup strategy
NARRAGANSETT -- About 100 University of Rhode Island scientists studying the oil spill's intrusion into their ocean laboratory gathered yesterday to comment on -- and criticize -- some of the state's cleanup strategies.

1/22: On Block Island: 'It smells like we're in trouble'
BLOCK ISLAND -- When Block Islanders awoke Sunday morning, disaster hung in the air.

1/22: A trail of death litters the beach
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- From the Harbor of Refuge in Galilee to the east, to the shoreline beyond the grounded hulks to the west, a trail of death has emerged where high tide licks the sands.

1/21: Spill closes shellfish beds
The oil spill forced the Department of Environmental Management to prohibit all shellfishing along several coastal ponds and state waters.

1/21: Nameless army of workers fights to save shoreline
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- They labored hard. They labored anonymously. They bulldozed sand, collected refuse and rigged booms to block the spread of oil into Trustom Pond.

1/21: Shoreline goes from a diamond to disaster
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- If the beaches, marshes and salt ponds of South County are among the jewels of the state's landscape, the diamond in the setting may be Moonstone -- the beach and the stunning area behind that comprises the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge.

1/21: Wildlife could have been hit even worse
NORTH KINGSTOWN -- As bad as this oil spill was for wildlife, it could have been much worse.

1/20: Wildlife preserves at risk
SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- The oil barge threatening to foul Rhode Island's south coast last night could not have picked a worse place to drift ashore.