Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

     Known as the 2nd worst oil spill in U.S. history, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was caused by the Exxon shipping company when they had mistakenly spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Bligh Reef on its voyage to Long Beach, California. The Valdez oil spill had covered 1300 miles of coastlines and had killed thousands of seals, whales, otters and sea birds living in Alaska. The oil spill had supposedly been caused by a drunken captain who had put an inexperienced third mate in charge of steering the ship. He was eventually charged with felony charges, totaling up to 50,000 dollars, and 100 hours of community service.

     During the first couple of weeks, of cleanup, there was minimal progress in cleaning up the spill as no equipment could reach the area of the spill. The news of the oil spill had spurred on thousands of volunteers all who wanted to help clean up the spill. Many conservatives of the time had stated that the environmental disaster was "the worst this country has seen in decades", which they blamed on the oil company solely. During the cleanup project, many environmentalists had purposely left part of the Prince William Sound (location of the spill), uncleaned to test whether or not cleanup efforts were completely successful. They had learned that while the cleanup efforts were successful, the method in which they used had caused unnecessary damage to the remaining plant and animal life, at the expense of removing the oil. Despite the hard work and effort of thousands for many years, it is impossible to clean up an oil spill of this large, because of the magnitude of impacts it had on the ocean that still lingers till this day.

Impacts of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill :

The oil spill had caused the death of over 250, 000 birds, 3000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales, and 22 billion salmon eggs.

The oil spill had caused the collapse of many local fishing industries and caused many fishermen to become bankrupt.

Reports after the spill show the total amount of costs to be around 2.8 billion dollars.

26 years after the spill many killer whales had been slowly killed off by the oil spill, which many scientists couldn't figure out why until they were tested and shown to have a large amount of oil poisoning.

This map shows all 613 reported Oil Spills in America from 1989-2018, the top left red point being the Exxon Valdez Spill

     This spill had led to George W Bush passing the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which had increased the penalties for oil companies responsible for the spill, and for all oil tankers in American waters to have a double hull rather than a single hull, around their tankers. While these improvements had made oil tankers safer, an even larger oil spill had occurred in 2010 in the Deepwater Horizon, spilling over 53000 barrels and killing a lot more wildlife than in the Valdez spill. The Horizon oil spill is currently the largest accidental spill ever recorded in human history killing 82,00 birds, 25,900 marine mammals, 6000 sea turtles, and tens of thousands of fish.

     While the Exxon Valdez spill had wreaked havoc on Alaska's Sound and had killed such a wide amount of wildlife, it had led to worldwide recognition of oil spills being a major problem, and had caused the passage of numerous regulation and acts trying to prevent something like this to ever happen again.


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/oil-spills-30-years-after-exxon-valdez/
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/oil-spill-colombia-animals-killed-spd/
https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/exxon-valdez-oil-spill