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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News 'Never Again,' environmental edition
Posted By John Grooms on Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Continuing environmental day at the Clog, this is the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest manmade ecological disasters, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The oil tanker wasn't double-hulled, the ship captain was drunk, the ship ran aground, and 11 million gallons of crude oil flooded the Sound, turning 3,200 miles of coastline into black sludge (by comparison, imagine ruined beaches, black with gooey oil, all the way from Maine to Savannah and you'll get an idea). The spill killed hundreds of thousands of birds, fish and marine mammals, and wrecked the finances, culture, and lives of coastal residents. The damage wasn't limited to just 1989, though. Towns on the sound, such as Cordova, and most of its citizens, were financially ruined, not to mention the destruction of the local ecology. About half of the spilled oil was buried on the beaches of the Sound, and in 2003, scientists found that 21,000 gallons of toxic crude oil are still there, and will probably remain there for centuries. Two-thirds of the species injured by the spill have never recovered, and in 2007, studies showed that the buried oil is still getting into the food chain for birds and animals that are feeding on contaminated shellfish. For more information on how the Prince William Sound has, and hasn't, recovered, click here.
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