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Michel Boufadel, professor of civil and environmental engineering, joined "NBC10 @Issue" to discuss the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Boufadel told host Steve Highsmith that there is "a high degree of uncertainty" about the volume of oil that will be released. "Most of our research has concentrated on spills that occur on the surface [of the ocean]," he said. "If they are not capable of capturing the oil that is gushing out, I think this could be one of the largest oil spills in history." Boufadel explained his research in Alaska's Prince William Sound, where he has found oil buried less than a foot below beaches some 20 years after the Exxon Valdez spill.