By March 2, 2006, when the spill was first discovered, it was already too late. By that time, corrosion had been slowly eating away at Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay pipeline for years. What started as a small hole in the pipeline would lead to a massive crude oil spill that contaminated vast areas of pristine Alaskan wilderness, including wildlife habitat, rivers and wetlands. Even more tragic is the fact that the event could probably have been prevented.