document: Millions of gallons of crude oil that spilled when a tanker ran aground spread across a wildlife-rich stretch of ocean Saturday , and Alaska 's chief environmental officer criticized cleanup efforts as too slow . The biggest oil spill in U.S. history created a slick about seven miles long and seven miles wide in Prince William Sound . The Coast Guard said only Reef Island and the western edge of Bligh Island had been touched by the slick . `` This situation , I think , was everyone 's secret nightmare about what could happen with oil traffic in the sound , '' said Dennis Kelso , commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation . Some 240,000 barrels _ about 10,080,000 gallons _ of crude oil from Alaska 's North Slope spilled early Friday when the 987-foot tanker Exxon Valdez ran hard aground on Bligh Reef , about 25 miles outside Valdez , where it had taken on a total cargo of 1.2 million barrels . Initial reports indicated 270,000 barrels had spilled . `` What we have here is a major environmental catastrophe , '' said one oil spill expert , Richard Golob of Boston , publisher of Golob Oil Pollution Bulletin . Golob said cleanup equipment at the site was `` grossly inadequate '' but added that even under ideal circumstances cleanup efforts would not have significantly reduced the spill 's impact . `` It is an enclosed body of water , '' he said . `` The only way for this oil to ecape out to the sea is by traversing the entire length of Prince William Sound with all its islands , fjords and bays and channels . `` And during that transit , undoubtedly a large stretch of shoreline will be contaminated , '' he said . Divers Saturday said they had found six to eight holes in the vessel 's hull large enough to swim through , said Frank Iarossi , president of Exxon Shipping Co. . About 30 feet of the vessel is resting on a shelf on the reef . Efforts to begin pumping 200,000 gallons of oil off the Exxon Valdez onto another tanker , the Exxon Baton Rouge , were halted early Saturday when authorities noticed that oil appeared to leaking as the pumping operation proceeded . Eleven of 17 tanks that lie forward of the ship 's masthead were ruptured in the accident , causing concern over removal of the oil , said Coast Guard Lt. Ed Wieliczkiewicz . `` Whenever you start removing oil from a vessel this size it has to be done in a controlled manner , '' Wieliczkiewicz said . `` If it 's not ... you endanger the stability of the vessel . '' Wieliczkiewicz said a boom was placed around the Exxon Valdez and the Exxon Baton Rouge to help contain oil around the vessels . He also said four members of the Coast Guard 's Pacific Strike Team from San Francisco , specially trained to deal with pollution and oil spills , arrived Saturday and were helping to rig pumps and assemble equipment needed to transfer oil to the Baton Rouge . Kelso was highly critical of what he said was a slow response to the spill . `` The initial reponse was inadequate and unacceptable , '' he said before a news conference Saturday . Kelso said the efforts should have been under way in five hours , but took much longer . `` You miss the opportunity right at the beginning and you 've missed our best opportunity to do something . '' Kelso said Alaska has a plan for oil spills that calls for action within five hours of a spill . It took several hours longer , he said , and only two of seven skimmers available to the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. were used at the outset . Alyeska spokesman Chuck O'Donnel said he was satisfied with his company 's actions . `` I think our people did an excellent job , '' he said . The spill 's effect on wildlife had not yet been assessed , but commercial fishermen who depend on the sound for a catch worth millions of dollars were outraged and said a key herring spawning area had been polluted . `` The whole food chain could be affected by the spill , '' said Alan Reichman , ocean ecology coordinator for the environmental group Greenpeace , in Seattle . `` There 's a high concentration of sea otter , waterfowl , sea birds and pink salmon in that area , '' said Steve Goldstein , a spokesman for the Interior Department in Washington . `` Some birds have already died , and we are doing our best to try to save the fish by containing the oil to the area where it presently is and by trying to skim it . '' Whales , porpoises and seals are also common in Prince William Sound . `` It 's kind of like sailing through a zoo , '' said Jim Lethcoe , who lives on a boat in the sound and operates a sailing business . An animal cleanup station was set up in a building at the community college in Valdez , but volunteers there said they had no animals to work on by midafternoon . The response to the spill also drew fire from the 12,000-member United Fishermen of Alaska . `` We feel that this should have been the easiest oil spill in the world to clean up , '' said Riki Ott , chairman of the organization 's habitat committee . She noted that the spill had occurred in a protected area close to the Valdez marine terminal and the water was calm . Ott said the spill had polluted Prince William Sound 's primary herring spawning area . Fishermen also take salmon and shellfish from the sound . Last year , they were paid about $ 85 million for their catches , she said . The Port of Valdez remained closed to tanker traffic . North Slope crude oil is shipped 800 miles through the trans-Alaska oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez for shipment aboard tankers to refineries outside Alaska . The Coast Guard said the Exxon Valdez struck the reef when it maneuvered outside normal tanker traffic lanes to avoid icebergs . The vessel 's captain , Joseph Hazelwood , has worked for Exxon for 20 years , at least 10 as a ship 's master . It was unclear if a pilot was aboard the Exxon Valdez when it grounded . There was no decision Saturday on whether to use chemicals to disperse the oil , but a test of the dispersal method was being conducted Saturday afternoon , as was a test to determine whether at least some of the crude oil could be burned . Coast Guard Cmdr. Steven McCall said National Transportation Safety Board investigators are expected to arrive Sunday to take over the accident probe . He said one or more blood-alcohol tests were administered after the grounding , but he said he did n't know know how many people were tested or the results . McCall said the tests routinely are administered in marine accidents involving federal jurisdiction . The Coast Guard issued a statement late Saturday that McCall has subpoenaed the ship 's master and two crew members . The subpoenas require them to make themselves available to NTSB investigators arriving Sunday . The Coast Guard said the supoenas were routine . Previously , the largest U.S. tanker spill was the Dec. 15 , 1976 , grounding of the Argo Merchant tanker off the Nantucket shoals off Massachusetts , in which 7.6 million gallons of oil spilled , Golob said . Up to 10.7 million gallons of oil was lost on Nov. 1 , 1979 , when the tanker Burmah Agate collided with another ship in Galveston Bay , Texas . However , that oil burned as well as spilled . The largest tanker spill in history resulted from the July 19 , 1979 , collision off Tobago of the supertankers Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain , in which 300,000 tons _ more than 80 million gallons _ of oil was lost .
extractive_keyphrases: oil spill major environmental catastrophe cleanup equipment crude oil cleanup efforts alaska
abstractive_keyphrases: u.s. tanker spill 987-foot tanker exxon valdez