The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: 10 Years Later

Four minutes after midnight on March 24,1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Eleven million gallons of North Slope oil spewed into one of the most bountiful marine ecosystems in the world, killing birds, marine mammals, fish, and devastating the ecosystem. (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: Could It Happen Again?, 2000, May 10) Exxon claims the Sound has recovered, but environmental groups claim otherwise. Who is right?

This environmental disaster caused more destruction of wildlife then any other in our nation’s history. Approximately, half a million birds died including bald eagles, harlequin ducks, marbled murrelets and loons. It also greatly affected fish. Critical spawning and rearing habitats, including over 100 salmon streams, were besieged in oil. In 1993, there was an unprecedented crash of the

Hard Aground: Disaster in Prince William Sound,

remove the oil, but is supposed to dilute the oil to a point where it is almost non-existent.

ific herring population. The spill also caused a noticeable decline in pink and churn salmon, dolly varden cutthroat trout and rockfish. The spill even affected habitats on land. Three national parks, three national wildlife refuges and one national forest was oiled.

Once help arrived cleanup began immediately. Specialists from the Hubbs Marine Institute in San Diego, California, set up a facility to clean oil from otters, and the International Bird Research Center of Berkeley, California, established a center to clean and rehabilitate oiled waterfowl. Three methods were used in the clean up…burning, mechanical cleanup and chemical dispersants. In burning, they simply tired to burn small sections of the oil slick. However, due to foul weather, this method was not tried again. Mechanical cleanup used booms and skimmers. Skimmers were attachments to the back of boats which filtered the very top layer of water. This method worked well, but skimmers often clogged because of kelp and the heavy oil and repairs were time consuming. Finally they tried dispersants. Dispersants work much like detergent does in your washing machine. It allows the oil to mix with the water, dispersing the oil in a wide area. This does not

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Approximate Word count = 928
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)