Oil Spill Exxon Valdez

Oil Spill Exxon Valdez

OIL SPILL
——The Exxon Valdez Disaster
The Exxon Valdez oil spill happened in Alaska, Prince William Sound, on 24th March, 1989. This is the largest environmental disaster in the world, lots of sea creatures were affected by the oil spill.
Background: An 8 hundred miles pipeline was built
In March 1968, a large oil field was found in Alaska which had a billion bounds of oil. The government planed to build an 8 hundred miles long pipeline straight across Alaska from Prudhoe Bey to Valdez. On 27th March 1975, construction began on the pipeline; it just took three years and $9 billions to build it, the oil company just threw money at it to get it done. The oil companies in the U.S government said: “We gonna use the pipeline via oil tanker to market. Trust us, not a drop of oil is gonna spill on the Prince William Sound, trust us, relax, it’s OK.”
Causes: Oil tank crushed the reef
On 24th March, 1989, the oil tanker, Exxon Valdez, carried the oil from Valdez. But on the way, the Exxon Valdez had left the shipping lanes because of the icebergs , and finally the oil tank hit Bligh Reef. 10.8 million gallons of oil were spilled into the sea and created a big trouble.

Effects: Ecosystems had been damaged
The oil covered over 28,000 km2 of ocean and 2,100 km of the coastline. Lots of fish had been poisoned by the oil, and many of them died. Also, the sea birds that ate fish got poisoned, too. Over half of the life got killed by the crude oil! Secondly, this caused a big economical loss because they spend a lot of money for clean-up, compensate…Thirdly, some residents leave there because many of them were fishermen but they couldn’t fish!
Management:Just a show & pointless
The company used about 11,000 workers, $20,000,000,000, and 3 months to “clean-up” (used hot water to rinse the coastline). But it was pointless. Actually, they didn’t really cleaned the oil away, they just rinsed the oil that on the coast into the sea. And they killed more life because the...

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