Just minutes after midnight, on the fateful night of March 24th, 1989, Prince William Sound, an inlet located in the Gulf of Alaska, was faced with an oily disaster. The culprit was an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company: the Exxon Valdez.
It was a late night for the Exxon Valdez. Carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil bound for Long Beach, the Exxon Valdez departed from the port of Valdez, Alaska soon before midnight. The captain of the vessel, gleefully drunk and in disregard for responsibility, turned over the helm of the ship to an unlicensed third mate—a string of perhaps his worst mistakes. Just four minutes after the clock struck twelve, the Exxon Valdez collided with the Bligh Reef. Through the ship’s hull, which had been torn open by the collision, the Exxon Valdez emptied just under eleven million gallons of crude oil into the Prince William Sound. The oil spill was catastrophic—so much so that it became the worst oil spill in United States history (at least until the Deepwater Horizon oil spill took that spot in 2010). To make matters worse, strong winds and waters quickly dispersed the massive spill throughout the night until the spill eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline.
The initial response was both trying and ineffective. Due to the sheer size of the spill and the fact that the spill was only accessible by either helicopter or boat, clean-up crews (which were mainly composed of Exxon employees, federal responders, and Alaska residents) found great difficulty in dealing with the spill. At first, responders attempted to get rid of the oil by burning it and through the use of skimmers, but, due to adverse weather conditions and overall inefficiency, both methods were dropped. Another method, the use of dispersants, was also ineffective and therefore discontinued. Doing what little they could, the cleanup teams washed beaches and rescued as many animals as possible. As a result of the disaster, Exxon paid a total of $3.8 million in cleanup and habitat restoration costs.
However, the cost of the disaster was irreparable, as it was largely paid by the surrounding wildlife. A quarter of a million seabirds, several thousand otters, hundreds of seals and bald eagles, and an estimated 22 killer whales all died as a result of the disaster. Furthermore, the economy of the surrounding area, relying on its salmon and herring fisheries, collapsed, with some reports estimating just under $3 billion in total economic loss.
In direct response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Although the act increased regulations on oil tankers and punishments for oil companies in order to prevent similar events from happening in the future, the tarnishing effects of the Exxon Valdez spill can still be seen today.
This article is super interesting, especially as it was an oil spill before there really was any regulations. Upon further research, I found that there were a lot of protests regarding Exxon handling (or more like neglecting) its responsibilities to cleanup one of the worst spills in history. Even to this day there are beaches with pockets of crude oil. It wasn't until 2014, 25 years after the spill, did the sea otter population resume to its levels pre-spill.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/exxon-valdez-oil-spill
https://qz.com/1577099/pictures-from-the-1989-exxon-valdez-disaster-30-years-ago/