ENVIRONMENT

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?