Oil Pollution Persists from Exxon Valdez Spill
Twenty years ago, the
single-hulled Exxon Valdez tanker collided with
the Bligh Reef in Alaska, spilling 11 million
gallons of crude oil into the pristine and
ecologically significant Prince William Sound.
The massive spill—caused by human error and
lack of oversight—ruined one of America’s most
treasured natural areas and caused the deaths
of millions of animals, including more than
3,000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250,000
murres, 14 orcas, and countless fish and
benthic invertebrates. Some species are still
unrecovered today, and the environment remains
blanketed in oil. A 2009 status report from the
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council states,
"…Exxon Valdez oil persists in the environment
and, in places, is nearly as toxic as it was
the first few weeks after the spill." Although
two decades have passed, as much as 16,000
gallons of oil persists in the Sound’s
intertidal zones, continuing to poison
wildlife. Animals such as the harlequin
duck have been slow to recover and show
elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons from continued exposure to oil.
The persistence of subsurface oils is
particularly problematic for species like sea
otters who dig for clams, exposing buried oil
in the process. Pacific herring and the pigeon
guillemot populations have still not recovered.
The small AT1 population of orcas will likely
become extinct, marking the death of a
priceless genetic lineage and a complex society
that has inhabited the region for thousands of
years. The Oil Pollution Act was
unanimously passed by Congress in 1990 in
response to public concern over the spill. The
Act contains provisions to prevent similar
catastrophes from occurring including a
conversion of oil tankers to double-hulled, the
establishment of spill contingency plans, and
the creation of regional advisory councils to
monitor the actions of the oil industry. While
79 percent of the global supertanker fleet has
been replaced by vessels with two hulls, Exxon,
the world's largest oil company, has kept using
tankers with only one.
