III Part. Write the things that you can do to protect the environment taking into account the aspects below. REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE IV. Part. Write 5 things you do at home to be an ecofriendly person. Are you ecofriendly? V Part. What do you know about the carbon footprint? What can you do to reduce it? Explain.
Name The Exxon Valdez Brings Danger to the Environment By Jane Runyon Oil is an important product in the world's economy. Oil is used to produce gasoline that makes cars and trucks run. Oil is used to heat homes in the winter. Byproducts of oil are used in chemical compounds to make everything from band-aids to plastic bottles. Oil is often transported from country to country around the world by large ships. One of these ships almost destroyed an entire living habitat. The Exxon Valdez left Valdez, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. This was a common trip for the oil tanker. It had just been filled with 52 million gallons of oil and was headed south through Prince William Sound. The captain of the ship, Joseph Hazelwood, radioed the Coast Guard station in the area. His crew had spotted some small icebergs in the water that he hoped to avoid by taking a slightly changed route. The captain then went off to bed and left the ship in the hands of his third mate. The helmsman was given instructions to make a turn to the new course. The turn was not sharp enough. At 12:04 A.M., the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef. Gallons of oil began to spill from the hull of the ship. It is estimated that approximately 11 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea before anything could be done to stop it. The United States Coast Guard was called. They immediately closed the Port of Valdez to all sea traffic. No ships were allowed to come into port and no ships were allowed to leave port. Environmental response teams were assembled. There was no doubt that that much oil was going to cause great danger to plant and animal life for miles around the spill. The Exxon Oil Company belonged to a group of seven oil companies called Alyeska. This group came forward and accepted responsibility for cleaning up the oil. They followed plans that had been set up for just such an emergency. Other groups joined Alyeska, the Coast Guard, and environmental teams in short order. It was decided that the groups had three options in trying to clean up the oil. They could burn it off, skim it off the surface with machines, or use chemicals to break the oil up and render it harmless. Burning the oil was tried first. Large booms, or floating barriers, were towed between two ships. These booms skimmed the oil off the top of the water. When the booms were full, the oil was set on fire. This method worked to a certain extent. Then the weather turned bad and the burning could no longer be used. Skimmers were brought to the clean-up site. Not many of these contraptions were available in the first few hours after the spill. Those that were brought to skim oil off the water soon clogged up with thick oil and seaweed. The machinery broke down often, and it took too much time for the skimmers to be repaired. Finally, it was time to try and disperse the oil with chemicals. Alyeska had only 4,000 gallons of the chemicals on hand. They had no way of spraying the chemical onto the oil. A helicopter was finally hired and dropped what chemicals it could. It was found that the chemicals were not mixing with the oil to disperse it, so that operation was stopped. It became apparent that cleaning up this huge mess was going to take a lot longer than anyone had hoped. In the meantime, environmental groups were trying to save any and all life that they could. Stations were set up in an attempt to clean birds whose feathers became covered by the sticky oil. It has been estimated that this one accident caused the immediate deaths of 250,000 birds, 2,800 otters, 300 seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales, and billions of eggs of salmon and herring who made their homes in the seas of Prince William Sound. Researchers believe that it may take up to thirty years before the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill have been completely cleared up. The Exxon Valdez was towed to a repair port in San Diego. It was known around the world as the ship that caused a terrible oil spill. Is it any wonder that after repairs were complete that the ship returned to service under a new name?
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