Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Alexa Resnick
What does the safety legislation implemented after the Exxon Valdez oil spill say about the government’s changing role in protecting against environmental hazards and how have the laws since then become stricter?
One of the biggest take-aways from the Exxon Valdez oil spill was that prevention techniques and response capability were not effective enough. The large-scale shipment of oil on supertankers during the 1960s made a serious accident almost unavoidable. During the 1980s, safety standards declined dramatically. For example, the crews assigned to tankers were reduced by half to an average of only 20 and the U.S. Coast Guard station at Valdez was cut back. In 1980, the governor of Alaska authorized the creation of the Alaska
They did this by using pictures of oil in the water and dead animals, or quotes from townspeople hurt by the spill. At first, the news of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was too much for many locals to handle, but as it settled in, they began to express their anger. A New York Times newspaper article titled “Exxon Valdez Townspeople Angered as Oil Slick Continues to Expand Off Alaska” exemplifies their pent-up anger. This article was published 8 days after the oil spill, which happened on March 24, 1989. Ms. Lethcoe said that before the Alaska pipeline was built, the oil companies had assured the local community that there would be sufficient safeguards to prevent accidents but that if an accident did occur, there would be enough equipment and advanced planning to prevent significant damage. However, significant damage was becoming more and more likely to occur at that time. On April 23, Alaskans remained silent for five minutes to remember how things were before the Exxon Valdez oil spill spilled 10.1 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound. At Cordova High School, kids made a mural of how Prince William Sound looked before the accident and a book on how they would remove the oil. The New York Times wrote “Fisherman frustrated by the pace of the cleanup have taken to sea in a makeshift flotilla, using scoops and buckets to gather the oil that threatens their livelihood.” The
Prince William Sound is a beautiful sound full of marine wildlife, which only increased the anger of environmental groups. “It was the home of the largest annual migration of seabirds, the largest populations of sea otters and bald eagles, and where millions of salmon spawned.” This is one reason the effect of oil on wildlife was so severe. The New York Times did a report on the effects of the spill 10 years later. At that point, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council had reported that the oil spill had killed 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and around 23 killer whales. Another reason that angered environmental groups was the slowness and ineffectivity of the cleanup process. Even with the U.S. Coast Guard helping the local authorities, it took 14 hours for the first barge with booms to make its way from the harbor to the spill. The booms were the first line of defense that was intended to keep oil from spreading but because of rough water, it did not work. After several days of more failed cleanup methods, the crude oil mixed with ocean water to form a tar-like substance, which drifted out to sea and sank there. Also, a lot of oil was forced into the soil of beaches. Many environmental groups were extremely unhappy with this, leading some to boycott Exxon products. On