Four minutes after midnight on
March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez hit
Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Carrying 1,264,155 barrels of oil
bound for Washington, the ship had maneuvered out of the shipping lane to avoid
icebergs. The timing of the spill, remote and spectacular location, thousands
of miles of rugged and wild shorelines, and the abundance of wildlife combined
to make it an environmental and societal disaster well beyond the scope of
other spills. Initially, response efforts were aimed at keeping the oil out of
critical salmon spawning areas by deploying protective boom at the mouths of
several rivers and lagoons. There was also hope that the oil might be kept off
of the beaches altogether by skimming it from the water before it came ashore.
For several days the oil held offshore in a 20 to 30 mile wide sheen and many
separate patches of mousse, or weathered and thickened oil. Unfortunately, the
oil skimmers were unable to keep the oil from the beaches. A storm that blew in
on the night of April 10 sent the first oil ashore in Kenai Fjords National
Park.
In the end, approximately 20 miles
of the Kenai Fjords coast received oil. This is about five percent of the total
coastline in the park and just a fraction of the total coastline oiled during
the disaster. Fortunately, the most sensitive salmon spawning areas in the park
did not receive oil. Areas classified as moderately or heavily oiled include
Pony Cove, Verdant Cove, Taroka Arm, Black Bay, Beauty Bay, Yalik Bay, and
McArthur Pass. Seward became a hub of wildlife treatment shortly after the
spill occurred. Facilities were set up for cleaning and caring for sea otters,
seabirds, and bald eagles; and volunteers from the local community contributed
many hours to this effort. Success rates varied, and many animals could not be
saved. One hundred eighty-four sea otters were brought to Seward, and
eventually only 19 of these were released back into the wild. Success rates
were a bit better with birds. Of 1,088 seabirds brought to Seward, 627 were
released. Twenty-two bald eagles arrived alive in Seward, and 13 of these were
released. The massive effort to document damage and cleanup oil led to people
surveying and walking on beaches that are rarely visited. As a result, many new
archeological sites were discovered that were previously unknown to scientists.
The documentation of these sites increased our understanding of former human
habitation of what is now Kenai Fjords National Park, but also exposed these
resources to the potential threat of human disturbance.
Three methods were tried in the
effort to clean up the spill: burning, mechanical cleanup, and chemical
dispersants. Efforts to save sensitive areas were begun early in the cleanup.
Sensitive environments were identified, defined according to degree of cleanup,
and then ranked for their priority for cleanup. Seal pupping locations and fish
hatcheries were given the highest importance, and for these areas special
cleaning techniques were approved. Despite the identification of sensitive
areas and the rapid start-up of shoreline cleaning, however, wildlife rescue
was slow. Adequate resources for this task did not reach the accident scene
quickly enough. Through direct contact with oil or because of a loss of food resources,
many birds and mammals died.
20 years after the worst oil spill
in U.S. history, huge quantities of oil still coat Alaska’s shores with a toxic
glaze. More than 21,000 gallons of
crude oil remain of the 11 million gallons of crude oil that bled from the
stranded tanker Exxon Valdez. The spill affected people living in or near the
sound economically and culturally. Both the long-term and short-term effects of
the oil spill have been studied. Immediate effects included the deaths of
100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters,
approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 Bald Eagles, and 22 orcas,
and an unknown number of salmon and herring. An 11,000-person crew removed oil
from the beaches until 1994, when government officials decided to end the clean
up effort. At that time, what was left of the oil was naturally disintegrating
at a high rate, and experts predicted it would be gone within a few years. But
it turns out that crude oil – especially when it is spilled in a cold region
like southeastern Alaska – lingers in the environment for years. According to
the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the Exxon Valdez oil is decreasing
at a rate of 0-4 percent per year. At this rate, the remaining oil will take
decades and possible centuries to disappear entirely. To the naked eye, Prince
William Sound may appear “normal.”
But if you look beneath the surface, oil continues to contaminate
beaches, national parks, and designated wilderness. And as long as the oil is
there, it can harm the animals that might come into contact with it. Sea otters
once again play in the waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, and salmon and
some other species have rebounded. But killer whale populations have not
recovered, and the huge schools of whirling herring that fed both fisherman and
animals have not returned, reminding scientists that nature’s responses are
complex and unpredictable.
As of December 15, 2009, Exxon paid
all owed $507.5 million punitive damages, including lawsuit costs, plus
interest, which were further distributed to thousands of plaintiffs. The most
positive results from the disaster involve oil tanker safety. In 1990, the U.S
Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, setting a schedule for the gradual phase
in of a double hull design, providing an additional layer between the oil tanks
and the ocean. While a double hull would likely not have prevented the Valdez disaster, a Coast Guard study
estimated that it would have cut the amount of oil spilled by 60 percent. The
Act set up a liability fund, toughened spill disaster plans, and created a
mechanism for citizen-led oversight committees to police safety claims by shippers.
Worldwide, the frequency of major accidents in oil shipping has dropped, and
insurance experts say safety has improved. The requirement for double-hilled
tankers spurred the shipping industry to modernize with much safer ships.
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