Exxon+Valdez+spill.cp



In my Essay I'll be talking about the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. My three main questions were how did this massive oil spill change our nation?, how was the cleaning up like? and how this oil spill was caused.These question I thought were the most important in my picture search because it gives out information that will explain some of the events made because of it. This oil spill of the Exxon Valdez was very disastrous which changed our nation very much. The cruse oil covered over 1200 miles of Rocky beaches. It spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude oil it was the largest oil spill in North American history. because of this spill 1990 kilometers of shoreline were contaminated 2,000 sea otters, 302 Harbor seals and about 25,000 seabirds died days after, and overall the biggest loss of populations were on the nigger mammals. The Exxon Valdez oil spill took 30 years to fully recover from the damage caused. And people still say that " Environmental effects of the Exxon Valdez spill still being felt". The clean up was a very big task. During the summer of 1989 over 10,000 workers were employed, the workers covered every faucet of the spill, environmental groups worked on saving the oiled seals, otters, and birds. It was very time consuming because workers would wipe down the oil and new waves would come in and coat the rocks again.Lots of equipments were tried and needed, Later on new technology was invented, they were microorganisms that ate crude oil. cleaning got better every year. The clean up cost over 100 million dollars total to remove the oil. It's is now reinstated, the helpers say it was "hardly expected". The vessel was traveling outside normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. Within six hours of the grounding the Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10.9 million gallons of crude oil, eight of eleven tanks on board were damaged. The oil impacted over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline of Alaska. also the crews members actions, Gregory cousins who was the third mate and piloted the ship he also did not have a required license. Joseph Hazelwood, captain who was not paying attention at the time of the accident. the captains license was suspended. partial fault was also to the Coast Guard's inefficiencies, who failed to provide a effective vessel traffic system. All in all to me these were the most important things to know about the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez this helps us understand all the damage that was caused and what people did to fix it. It can also give us an image of how badly our oil spill now was, that there is ways to fix it too. the Exxon Valdez has good lessons to learn from it this way they say they can take the lessons they learned to respond in a better way to future oil spills.