ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- A report from the panel overseeing restoration of Alaska's Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled millions of gallons of oil in 1989, says only two of the nearly two dozen species hurt are fully recovered.

But about half of the natural resource categories harmed by the 1989 disaster are on their way to recovery, the report, issued Tuesday by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, said.

The report comes as a grounded cargo ship in Oregon continues to leak thousands of gallons of oil and diesel fuel onto environmentally sensitive beaches.

An oil-coated victim of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989

The council, comprising three federal and three state trustees, manages the $900 million that Exxon has promised to pay over a decade to settle state and federal civil lawsuits.

Classifying the recovery status of species and resources injured by the worst-ever U.S. oil spill was an inexact process, said Stan Senner, a state biologist who helped organize the council's report.

"In fact, recovery is something that takes place along a continuum," Senner said at a teleconferenced meeting of the trustee council.

Among the species considered recovering are common murres, a black-and-white seabird that accounted for about three-quarters of the 30,000 oiled bird carcasses collected in the four months after the spill.

Also healing from the spill's injuries are clams and mussels, according to the report.

Six species of birds and marine mammals -- common loons, cormorants, harbor seals, harlequin ducks, pigeon guillemots and a key population of Prince William Sound's killer whales -- have shown no significant recovery, the report said.

Only two species -- bald eagles and river otters -- are considered fully recovered.

Still unknown is the post-spill fate of two types of trout, the area's rockfish, the ecosystem in designated wilderness areas and a rare species of seabird, the Kittlitz's murrelet.

The Kittlitz's murrelet population numbers only a few tens of thousands, and the bird is found only in Alaska and the Russian Far East, the report said. A large percentage breed in Prince William Sound, and one study estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 were killed outright by the spill, the report said.

In Coos Bay, Oregon, cracks widened in the hull of the New Carissa on Tuesday and gooey, tar-like fuel oil streaked the southern coastline for six miles around the 639-foot cargo ship.

As many as 300 workers in yellow slickers and hard hats were called in to mop up the mess with shovels, squeegees and absorbent pompoms.

"I regret very much that we have a very serious incident on our hands," said William Milwee, the salvage consultant representing the Japanese company that owns the ship.

The Coast Guard said three of the ship's five fuel tanks were leaking and one, containing heavy fuel oil, was "seriously breached." It was not known how much oil had leaked, but the three tanks hold 140,000 gallons of oil and diesel.

Several oil-covered birds have been found, and special crews were standing by in case the slick threatened the habitat of Western snowy plovers, a threatened bird.

The ship, staffed with a crew of 23, grounded Thursday about 150 yards offshore as it waited to come into port to pick up a load of wood chips. Its crew was removed by the Coast Guard on Friday.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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