Exxon Valdez oil spill was one of the worst environmental disasters in United States history. In March 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef off southeastern Alaska. The tanker spilled nearly 11 million gallons (42 million liters) of crude oil into the Prince William Sound, part of the Gulf of Alaska. The oil polluted beaches and fishing waters and caused great harm to wildlife. The disaster brought worldwide attention to issues of oil tanker safety. Following the spill, a number of nations passed regulations phasing out old tankers and requiring safer and stronger ship designs.
Background.
On March 22, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez docked at the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal in Valdez, Alaska. There, it was filled with 53 million gallons (200 million liters) of crude oil. The oil had arrived at the terminal via pipeline from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s northern coast. The two-year-old Valdez was 987 feet (301 meters) long, 166 feet (50 meters) wide, and 88 feet (27 meters) tall. It had a storage capacity of 62 million gallons (235 million liters). The tanker had a single hull––that is, a single layer of steel between the oil inside and the seawater outside. Tankers like the Valdez had traveled safely through the Prince William Sound thousands of times since the pipeline had been completed in 1977.
The incident.
The Valdez, with a crew of 19, left the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal shortly after 9 p.m. on March 23. Captain Joseph J. Hazelwood, a 20-year veteran seaman, commanded the ship.
Tugboats moved the Valdez from its dock by 9:21 p.m. William Murphy, a harbor boat pilot, commanded the ship. Such pilots navigate ships through crowded or dangerous harbors. Exxon required its captains to join harbor boat pilots on the ship’s bridge (platform for officers in command), but Hazelwood went below deck to his quarters. A single tugboat helped guide the ship through Valdez Narrows, a sea channel 7 miles (11 kilometers) southwest of the terminal.
Between 11:10 and 11:25 p.m., Hazelwood replaced Murphy at the bridge, and the pilot returned to port. To avoid reported icebergs in the area, Hazelwood set a course through a shipping lane usually reserved for inbound traffic. Authorities approved the captain’s course because there were no other ships in the area. Soon after, Hazelwood increased the ship’s speed and set the Valdez on autopilot. By 11:53 p.m., he went to his quarters and left Third Mate Gregory Cousins, a junior ship officer, alone at the bridge.
Cousins plotted a course to steer the ship back into the normal shipping lane for outbound traffic. By this time, however, the ship had become badly positioned to maneuver in dangerous waters. By 12:04 a.m. on March 24, the Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef. Hazelwood rushed to the bridge and radioed authorities about the incident. For the next hour and a half, he used the ship’s engine and rudder to try to free the ship from its position atop the reef. As a result of the accident and the captain’s attempts to rock the tanker off the reef, 8 of the ship’s 11 cargo tanks ruptured. Millions of gallons of oil poured into the waters of the Prince William Sound.
Early responses.
Initial responses to the huge oil spill were slow. By early afternoon on March 24, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company had sent out two skimmers––that is, ships outfitted with oil recovery equipment. By the morning of March 25, crews began transferring oil from the damaged Valdez to the tanker Exxon Baton Rouge.
Authorities conducted a test burn, a controlled burning of the oil near the spill site. Aircraft also applied dispersants (chemicals that break up oil into small particles) to the area. However, not enough of these chemicals were available to affect an oil spill of this size. On March 26, a severe winter storm struck the Valdez area. The oil slick, which at first had remained fairly close to the spill area, spread to an area of 100 square miles (260 square kilometers). Crude oil began to coat the shoreline.
Cleanup.
Exxon launched a massive cleanup operation. The United States Coast Guard and a number of state and federal agencies also assisted with cleanup efforts. Through the summer of 1989, Exxon employed more than 11,000 people in cleanup efforts. The work force became known as Exxon’s Army.
The oil spill contaminated about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) of coastline and killed an estimated 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and 250,000 birds. The spill also caused lasting damage to area fisheries. Images of dead or dying wildlife covered in oil attracted worldwide attention. Most of the cleanup work at the sound was completed by 1992 at a cost of more than $2 billion. But scientists continued to work toward restoring the ecological balance of the area.
Court cases and long-term effects.
In September 1991, the Exxon Shipping Company and Exxon Corporation pleaded guilty to violating several environmental laws. The laws included the Clean Air Act, the Refuse Act, and the Migratory Bird Act. Exxon also agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines. In 1994, a federal court ordered Exxon to pay a $5 billion fine to commercial fishers and residents of the areas affected. The Supreme Court of the United States later reduced this figure to about $500 million.
In March 1990, an Alaska court found Captain Hazelwood guilty of the charge of “negligent discharge of oil.” He was fined $50,000 and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service. The captain had admitted drinking alcohol before the ship departed. However, prosecutors could not convince the jury that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident.
Public concern about the Valdez spill led to Congress’s passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. The law gave the federal government additional powers to regulate the oil tanker industry. The act also contained provisions that called for ending the use of single-hulled tankers within U.S. waters.
Within 20 years of the Valdez spill, about 80 percent of all supertankers had double hulls––that is, an extra layer of steel that acts as a buffer in an accident. Many countries have banned the use of single-hulled tankers.
The Valdez was repaired after the spill and renamed several times. In 2007, the ship, known as the Dong Fang Ocean, was refitted to carry ore. In 2012, the ship, renamed the Oriental Nicety, was dismantled in India.
