Office of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Damage Assessment and Restoration | NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional Office Home » Habitat Conservation Office of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Damage Assessment and Restoration On March 24, 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil across 1,300 miles of coastline - a catastrophic event that lead to one of the most thorough examinations of the effects of oil on the environment. While the vast majority of the spill area now appears to have recovered, pockets of crude oil remain in some locations, and there is evidence that not all resources injured by the spill have recovered to the previous state The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Trustee Council was established with funds from the legal settlement between the State of Alaska, the Federal Government and Exxon to develop research, restoration and habitat conservation plans for the spill area. Current studies underway are directed towards long term monitoring and research. The NMFS Alaska Regional Administrator represents NOAA on the Council and oversees the implementation of Cooperative Agreements that NOAA has established on behalf of the EVOS council.

Information on these programs can be found through EVOS Trustee Council . General Oil Spill Information Oil plagues sound 20 years after Valdez - US news - Environment | NBC News Advertise A cleanup worker walks through the oily surf at Naked Island on Prince William Sound on April 2, 1989, a week after the Exxon Valdez ran aground. A federal court jury in Anchorage in 1994 ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to Alaska fishermen, natives, landowners and others whose lives were affected by the disaster. After several appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 reduced that amount to $507.5 milion. (Chris Wilkins / AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation A worker helps clean up the Exxon Valdez spill. (Natalie Fobes / Corbis) Share Back to slideshow navigation Related video Bush considers federal takeover of Valdez cleanup Three tugboats, right, push the oil tanker Exxon San Francisco, center, into place beside the crippled Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound on March 30, 1989, to begin off-loading the remainder of crude oil in the Valdez.

(Chris Wilkins / AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Advertise A resident of Tatitlek, Alaska, holds an oil-covered bird on March 26, 1989, two days after the Exxon Valdez ran aground. (AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Rescue workers hold a cormorant that was caught in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. (Gary Braasch / Corbis) Share Back to slideshow navigation Tugboats tow the crippled Exxon Valdez off Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound on April 5, 1989, to a harbor near Naked Island for repair and salvage efforts. (Chris Wilkins / AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Related video Oil tanker collides with Alaska reef; worst oil spill in 12 years Former Exxon Valdez captain Joseph Hazelwood, left, is escorted to his arraignment inside the Suffolk County courthouse in Hauppauge, N.Y., on April 5, 1989, on charges stemming from the Alaskan oil disaster. Hazelwood was cleared of a charge of being drunk at the time of the accident.

He was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service. (Bill Swersey / AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Advertise Sujatha Jahagirdar, from the California Public Interest Research Group, holds oil-covered stones at a March 24, 1999, press conference in front of an Exxon gasoline station in Los Angeles on the 10th anniversary of the environmental disaster. At left is CalPIRG member Margot Broaddus. (Mike Nelson / AFP - Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation A rock covered with crude oil tar from the wreck of the Exxon Valdez is displayed on April 4, 2004, near Valdez, Alaska, 15 years after the disaster.

(David McNew / Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Related video Exxon Valdez oil spill, 10 years later An iceberg drifting from Columbia Bay and past Glacier Island, on the same path as the icebergs that caused the Exxon Valdez to change its course before hitting Bligh Reef, is seen on April 6, 2004, near Valdez, Alaska. Fifteen years after the oil tanker ran aground, legal fights continued and oil still clung to rocks on once-pristine beaches. (David McNew / Getty Images) Share Back to slideshow navigation Scars and large chunks of reef on the underside of the Exxon Valdez are still visible, nearly 20 years after the oil-spill disaster. Oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau looks at the ship on March 11, 2009, as it is being repaired in dry dock in San Diego. The vessel will be renamed the Exxon Mediterranean before it is put back to sea. (Earl S. Cryer / Zuma Press) Share Back to slideshow navigation This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing. Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.

This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing. Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away. This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing. Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away. 25 Years After Spill, Alaska Town Struggles Back From 'Dead Zone' : NPR 25 Years After Spill, Alaska Town Struggles Back From 'Dead Zone' Embed Embed 25 Years After Spill, Alaska Town Struggles Back From 'Dead Zone' 25 Years After Spill, Alaska Town Struggles Back From 'Dead Zone' Embed Embed Orca Inlet, Cordova's fishing harbor, on a blustery day this month. Commercial fishing is the small Alaskan town's primary industry. Marisa Peñaloza/NPR hide caption toggle caption Marisa Peñaloza/NPR Orca Inlet, Cordova's fishing harbor, on a blustery day this month. Commercial fishing is the small Alaskan town's primary industry.

Marisa Peñaloza/NPR On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the pristine water. At the time, it was the single biggest spill in U.S. history. In a series of stories, NPR is examining the lasting social and economic impacts of the disaster, as well as the policy, regulation and scientific research that came out of it. It's a blustery, snowy March day when Michelle Hahn O'Leary offers a tour of Cordova, Alaska, situated on the eastern shore of Prince William Sound. Starting at the fishing harbor on Orca Inlet, she passes a row of canneries. Commercial fishing is the lifeblood of this town of 2,200. 'We're Leaking Some Oil' An excerpt from Exxon Valdez Capt. Joseph Hazelwood's radio call to the U.S. Coast Guard after striking Bligh Reef. O'Leary and her late husband were preparing for the spring herring season in March 1989, when the giant oil tanker Exxon Valdez took a very wrong turn.

The ship ran aground on Bligh Reef in the early morning hours of March 24, leaking oil into the sound's frigid waters. When the ship's captain, Joseph Hazelwood, made a call to the Coast Guard just after midnight, he said the ship was "evidently leaking some oil." The ruptured tanker subsequently oozed 11 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound. "It just felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach," says O'Leary. "This was one of those turning points in life, where you measure things before and after." O'Leary hasn't fished since. Native Alaskan Tom Andersen, once a commercial fisherman, no longer makes his living from the sea, either. "You can't fix it. Once you break that egg, sometimes that's it," he says. Article continues after sponsorship Andersen, 71, says the waters here have sustained his people, the Chugach, for generations. He now picks up odd construction jobs hanging drywall. A whole way of living has changed, he says, making a wiping motion with his arm. "You pretty much lived there — you got your clams and crabs and fish," he says.

"And then somebody come and dumped oil all over it, you know? That's really hitting home." Hide caption A cleanup worker lifts an oar near a boom in Prince William Sound, Alaska, after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989. Previous View slideshow 'The Dead Zone' Because the oil company and government agencies were ill-prepared to respond, oil from the Exxon Valdez stretched for 11,000 square miles. It fouled beaches, destroyed fisheries and killed hundreds of thousands of birds and all kinds of sea life, including whales and sea otters. Exxon eventually set up a voluntary program to compensate oil spill victims, and hired local fishermen for the cleanup – including Andersen, who worked a sea otter rescue crew. "You could smell [the oil] before you ever saw it," he recalls. Prince William Sound, he says, was silenced. "There was no fish, no birds chasing fish. You could sit there and it'd just be dead quiet. So everybody called it the dead zone." David Janka uses his boat for private charters. Many of his clients are scientists studying the spill's impact.

Debbie Elliott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Debbie Elliott/NPR David Janka uses his boat for private charters. Many of his clients are scientists studying the spill's impact. Debbie Elliott/NPR The disaster upended life in Cordova for years. Fishermen were docked. Businesses went bankrupt. Drug and alcohol abuse went up, along with reports of domestic violence and depression. The mayor committed suicide. Those paid by Exxon to work the cleanup were jealously labeled "spillionaires." This once close-knit community changed, says Patience Andersen Faulkner, Andersen's sister. "You couldn't look at your neighbor to help you. You didn't trust your neighbor, you didn't trust your brother. It was very, very sad." Faulkner is now part of a citizens' advisory council put in place to monitor the recovery and readiness for potential future oil spills. The panel is still tracking lingering oil from the Exxon Valdez. Dave Janka captains the Auklet, a 58-foot wooden boat he uses for private charters. Most of his clients are scientists studying the oil spill's impact. Along the way, Janka has collected his own samples.

He opens a jar labeled "February 19, 2014." Janka collected the dark black oily-water mixture from Eleanor Island in Prince William Sound, digging down about 6 inches beneath the rocky shoreline. It smells like your hand after pumping gas at a service station. "Looks like oil, smells like oil. It's oil," Janka says. "If you or I, in our backyard or at our mom and pop gas station, had a fuel tank leak, we would be held to the point of bankruptcy to clean that up." Patience Andersen Faulkner says the disaster changed the town. "You didn't trust your neighbor, you didn't trust your brother. It was very, very sad." Debbie Elliott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Debbie Elliott/NPR Patience Andersen Faulkner says the disaster changed the town. "You didn't trust your neighbor, you didn't trust your brother. It was very, very sad." Debbie Elliott/NPR 'I'll Never Get Over It' Exxon, now Exxon Mobil Corp., spent a total of $4.3 billion in cleanup costs, legal damages, settlements and fines. Exxon Mobil spokesman Richard Keil says the company regrets that the incident took place.

"Without doubt, it was a tragic event. But it's something we have learned from, and we live those lessons each and every day." A class-action lawsuit wasn't resolved until 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court slashed an initial jury award of $5 billion to $507 million, plus $470 million in interest. Jim Kallander, a fisherman and former mayor of Cordova, does not blame Exxon for mounting a defense. "We all need oil; accidents are going to happen," he says. But after 19 years of drawn-out litigation, he continues, the final Supreme Court verdict was the hardest blow. "Justice was not served," he says. "All my life, I'd been brought up to think that, you know, you get to the Supreme Court and everything is made right. People are made whole. Issues are corrected. And I'm still disappointed. I'll never get over it." Now, 25 years later, Kallander says the town of Cordova has nearly come full circle, even if the environmental recovery is incomplete. An orca pod in Prince William Sound is near extinction and the local herring fishery isn't back.

But the harbor is bustling again with a fishing fleet getting ready to harvest salmon, halibut and cod. Kallander's boat, the Miss Emily, is now part of a stand-by fleet ready to respond to oil spills. "We have to be fueled up, and watered up, and have groceries on board; be ready to go 24/7," he says. Back out at Orca Inlet, Michelle O'Leary warns that, even with the new readiness, the lesson from Exxon Valdez is that there's no way to put the oil back once it spills. "Right now, we've got one of the safest ports in the world, and we've got one of the best oil spill response plans," she says. "But the weather we're having today — nothing could be done, absolutely nothing." She's talking about the winds that are gusting to 60 miles an hour — winds that just canceled a planned oil spill response drill. Dispersants don't work in these conditions, O'Leary says, and the oil would be nearly impossible to contain. Here in Alaska, the best-laid plans are still at the mercy of Mother Nature.

The Exxon Valdez, 25 Years Later Home Ocean Media Podcasts Making Waves: The Exxon Valdez The Exxon Valdez, 25 Years Later Making Waves: Episode 122 Recovery Timeline The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled almost 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, injuring 28 types of animals, plants, and marine habitats. How long has it taken them to recover from this spill? Twenty-five years later, which ones have not recovered? Here is a timeline showing when natural resources were declared officially "recovered," through actual recovery could have occurred earlier than this official designation from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. Click/tap on the map for a larger view | Download this graphic Listen: Download this podcast. In this podcast, we talk with NOAA marine biologist Gary Shigenaka to find out how marine life is faring in Prince William Sound today. We also look at lessons we might learn from this environmental disaster in light of growing oil exploration and shipping traffic in the Arctic. Transcript [SHIP RADIO] "Yeah, this is Valdez. We've ... should be on your radar there.

We've fetched up, hard aground, north of Goose Island off Bligh Reef and ... evidently ... leaking some oil ... " [NARRATOR] That radio call was made on March 24th, 1989. An oil tanker had struck Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound. It was the beginning of one of the biggest environmental disasters in U.S. history. This is Making Waves from NOAA's National Ocean Service. I'm Troy Kitch. In today's show, the Exxon Valdez oil spill—twenty-five years later. After the Exxon Valdez spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, a team of NOAA scientists arrived on-scene to provide scientific support during the long clean-up. Biologist Gary Shigenaka was a member of that team. The Exxon Valdez was his first introduction to working on a big oil spill for NOAA.

[GARY SHIGENAKA] "It changed the course of my career and possibly even my life and it really defined the challenges of understanding environmental disturbance in a complex setting like Prince William Sound." [NARRATOR] That's Gary, and he's with us today by phone from his Seattle office where he works as a biologist in NOAA's Response and Restoration office. He said that part of what made this spill unique was not only its size, but that it happened in such a remote place. There just weren't any response assets that could quickly be called up to go clean up the oil: [GARY SHIGENAKA] "... like vessels, airplanes, and people and specialized pieces of gear like containment boom. Prior to that other recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon, it was the largest spill to occur in U.S. waters and it was a benchmark in a lot of ways. The shortcomings that were identified during the initial and longer-term response resulted in major changes to U.S.

law, primarily expressed in a piece of legislation known as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990." [NARRATOR] That law led to things like making sure we were more prepared and better trained to deal with spills, prepositioning equipment around the nation, and requiring all oil tankers in the U.S. to have double hulls -- but these changes only tell part of the story. The kind of change we're going to talk about for the rest of the show doesn't involve improvements in ship hull design, new laws, or better training ... it involves nature. And how scientists try to figure out what's going on in nature. Twenty-five years later ... how is this remote region of Alaska faring? That's a question that we'll see is not so easy to answer. Remember when Gary said that this spill defined the challenges of understanding environmental disturbance in a complex setting? What exactly does that mean? Well, he said Prince William Sound is a very complex ecosystem, a place with gravely intertidal areas, glaciers, and exotic wildlife like whales, salmon, and sea otters. And, above all, it's a region where the environment is constantly in flux. This area changes rapidly from year to year.

[GARY SHIGENAKA] "Our monitoring program after the spill really showed how variable the Prince William Sound marine environment is even without a disturbance like the spill. So this is looking at what we call the unoiled, what we call the 'control sites,' and this inherent variability has translated into big challenges for tracking the signal of the spill, especially after the first year or two after it begins to fade a little bit, then it's get harder to separate the signal of the spill from the inherent background variability that is characteristic for Prince William Sound. Basically, if things are changing a lot at the sites you're monitoring and it isn't linked to the oil spill, you know, how do you define when things are back to 'normal,' in quotes I guess that would be." [NARRATOR] Adding to this 'inherent variability,' there was something else to consider. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "And the other thing that made it unique at the time of the spill was the fact that it really was still recovering from another major disturbance that happened exactly 25 years before the Exxon Valdez and that was the Great Alaskan earthquake, which was one of the largest that's been recorded to date.

And we can really focus in on Prince William Sound because Prince William Sound was one of the most impacted areas in Alaska. There were places that were uplifted as much as 30 feet during that particular earthquake. So you can imagine the shorelines changed really radically. So then we would have a human event superimposed on a large-scale natural event. So it's a complex kind of picture." [NARRATOR] So given all of these variables, can we really say anything about how fish, animals, and plants are recovering from the spill? Gary said in some cases, yes. But it often depends on knowing what conditions were like before the spill happened. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "Whenever we have a spill or when we're trying to assess the impact of any action or disturbance on an environment in question, we always ask, 'well, what were things like beforehand.' And for oil spills, we rarely know. In the case of the Exxon Valdez, there was one exception, and it's proved to be important." [NARRATOR] The exception was a monitoring program of orcas that had been ongoing in the Sound for at least five years before the spill.

[GARY SHIGENAKA] "That pre-spill information showed that something in 1989 drastically reduced the numbers of orcas in two groups that frequents Prince William Sound and that's something that's mostly unheard of in generally stable populations of large marine mammals. And then the continuing monitoring after the spill has shown a very disturbing recovery pattern. One not so disturbing: one group of orca whales in Prince William Sound is slowly recovering, but the other group of orcas is declining towards extinction. So that kind of demonstrates what the value is of pre-spill information, but again, it's very rarely available, so the next best thing that we've got for comparing oiled or cleaned site conditions to those of unoiled sites is to look at comparable sites that were not subject to the impact, in this case the oil spill." [NARRATOR] After the spill, other long-term monitoring studies were started, some of which are still ongoing to this day. One study looked at how the gravel and rocky shorelines along the Sound recovered from some of the more aggressive clean-up methods used to remove oil. Were shorelines more damaged by the clean up than the oil alone? The answer: yes.

But the flip side is that these beaches also recovered quite quickly. And this points to a reality of cleaning up oil spills: it's often about choosing between tradeoffs. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "There was more damage, but the shoreline communities fairly quickly compensated for that additional damage and, within a year or two, they were about at the same place, and then after three or four years, most of the damage from both oil and clean up was gone. So we could say they were effectively recovered. So you put that into a clean up context and you try to determine what the tradeoffs are. Are you willing to accept that kind of a cost to get more oil out of the environment, and that's something that happens all the time in terms of in making your choices for oil spill clean up methods." [NARRATOR] And then there are still things that science can't yet explain. I asked Gary what's most surprising today about this spill after so many years. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "There's still pockets of oil in some places in Prince William Sound and along the Alaskan Peninsula and it's still relatively fresh.

I don't think anyone really expected that after 25 years and we don't fully understand why. I think that's something that'll be important to try to figure out for the future." [NARRATOR] Unexpected pockets of relatively fresh oil, gravel beaches that returned pretty much to normal after four or five years, animal populations that have recovered or are still trying to recover today...how do scientists deal with so much often conflicting data? How can we know if changes or recovery times are due to the oil spill or if there are other factors at play? How do we know when an area is 'recovered?' This all points back at what Gary says is the main take-away lesson after 25 years of studying the aftermath of this spill: the natural environment in Alaska and in the Arctic are rapidly changing. If we don't understand that background change, than it's really hard to say if an area has recovered or not after a big oil spill. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "I think we need to really keep in mind that maybe our prior notions of recovery as returning to some pre-spill or absolute control condition may be outmoded.

We need to really overlay that with the dynamic changes that are occurring for whatever reason and adjust our assessments and definitions accordingly. I don't have the answers for the best way to do that. We've gotten some ideas from the work that we've done, but I think that as those changes begin to accelerate and become much more marked, then it's going to be harder to do." [NARRATOR] So given what we've heard so far, 25 years later, is Prince William Sound generally considered recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill? [GARY SHIGENAKA] "No. There's a pretty robust research program that's been going on in Prince William Sound -- not just ours -- but a whole series of research and monitoring activities and mostly under the auspices of the Exxon Valdez oil spill trustee council." [NARRATOR] He said that this group has been looking at a fixed set of resources for nearly the entire time that has passed since the spill. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "And slowly but surely, there list of impacted resources has been switching from one column, impacted, to another column, recovered.

And most recently, they've moved a couple of persistent unrecovered resources -- and that would be sea otters and harlequin ducks—from the 'not recovered' column to the 'recovered' column. So that's good news but we've still got a handful of resources that remain in the 'not recovered' column, including the orcas I mentioned. The short answer to the question, I think, is because not everything has moved over to the recovered column, then you can't really say that Prince William Sound has recovered. [NARRATOR] But, he added, Prince William Sound has made a lot of progress over the past two and a half decades. [GARY SHIGENAKA] "It's in some ways encouraging to see that the environment can rebound from something like a major oil spill, but it is still a little distressing that we can't just say 25 years after the fact that things have recovered completely." [NARRATOR] Gary attributed most of that progress in environmental restoration not to human efforts, but to the resiliency of nature.

[GARY SHIGENAKA] "Nature has pretty much on its own—I mean we did some good with the clean up but the estimates of how much oil that our clean up efforts removed from the environment versus the amount of oil that was naturally degraded or removed from the environment, it's pretty discouraging in terms of the scale of the efforts that we posed during the spill. It comes out somewhere between 10-15 percent of the total oil spilled was recovered by our clean up efforts. So the natural environment pretty much does the job on its own. We can help a little bit, and I think we can make a big difference for highly sensitive areas, but for the most part we're just a footnote to oil spill clean up from the environment overall." [NARRATOR] So what we know is that things have improved over time since the spill in Prince William Sound, but it's hard to quantify because the environment is changing so quickly and in so many ways. This variability and rapid change is perhaps most profound in the Arctic. And as the Arctic continues to warm and the prospect of more human activity in this region seems inevitable -- think shipping and oil exploration—what can Exxon Valdez teach us?

[GARY SHIGENAKA] "Well I think, for us, the very concept of an oil spill in the Arctic is scary and there's a lot of reasons for that. First of all, it's obviously really a difficult environment to work in because of the weather, and then logistically, as well as culturally. So if you thought that Prince William Sound was remote, then responding to a spill in the Arctic would be almost like working on the moon. But also from an assessment perspective, the Arctic is kind of on the leading edge of some of the most rapid and radical changes that are taking place in the natural world. People who live in that area talk about the absence of long-term ice -- the old ice that used to be a part of their environment or the fact that their cellars that they use as natural refrigerators and freezers now are melting and flooding. So the Arctic communities are really bellwethers for the changes that occurring related to climate change and a lot of the other large-scale influences that are taking place because of human influences.

So that's really going to affect our ability to characterize impact and recovery for the same reasons that it's difficult to do a place like Prince William Sound from the Exxon Valdez." [NARRATOR] That was Gary Shigenaka, marine biologist with the Emergency Response Division of NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration. This is Making Waves from NOAA's National Ocean Service. Subscribe to us in and leave us some feedback about what you think of the show. We'll return in a few weeks with a new episode. From corals to coastal science, catch the current of the ocean with our audio and video podcast, Making Waves. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: 25 Years Ago Today - The Atlantic The Atlantic 39 Photos In Focus On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez had just entered Alaska's Prince William Sound, after departing the Valdez Marine Terminal full of crude oil. At 12:04 am, the ship struck a reef, tearing open the hull and releasing 11 million gallons of oil into the environment. Initial responses by Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Company were insufficient to contain much of the spill, and a storm blew in soon after, spreading the oil widely.

Eventually, more than 1,000 miles of coastline were fouled, and hundreds of thousands of animals perished. Exxon ended up paying billions in cleanup costs and fines, and remains tied up in court cases to this day. The captain, Joseph Hazelwood, was acquitted of being intoxicated while at the helm, but convicted on a misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service. Though the oil has mostly disappeared from view, many Alaskan beaches remain polluted to this day, crude oil buried just inches below the surface. 10 Photos Tell the Story of the Exxon Valdez Tweet 10 Photos Tell the Story of the Exxon Valdez The single-hull tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 24, 1989, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil. (U.S.

Coast Guard) By MarEx 2016-03-25 21:20:15 While oil spills happen almost every day, we are fortunate that relatively few make such large or lasting impressions as the Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez spills. Before 2010, when the United States was fixated on a gushing oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, most Americans could probably only name one spill: when the tanker Exxon Valdez released 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. Here NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has gathered 10 photos that help tell the story of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its impacts, not only on the environment but also on science, policy, spill response, school kids, and even board games. It has become a touchstone event in many ways, one to be learned from even decades after the fact. 1. Time for safety In an ironic twist of fate, the Exxon Shipping Company’s safety calendar featured the tanker Exxon Valdez in March 1989, the same month the ship ran aground.

Image: From the collection of Gary Shigenaka. Long before the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, a series of events were building that would enable this catastrophic marine accident to unfold as it did. These actions varied from the opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s to the decision by the corporation running that pipeline to disband its oil spill response team and Exxon’s efforts to hold up both the tanker Exxon Valdez and its captain, Joseph Hazelwood, as exemplars of safety. Captain Hazelwood received two Exxon Fleet safety awards for 1987 and 1988, the years leading up to March 1989, which was coincidentally the month the Exxon Valdez was featured on an Exxon Shipping Company calendar bearing the warning to “take time to be careful – now.” Read more about the timeline of events leading up to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. 2. A law for the birds Thanks to the Oil Pollution Act, federal and state agencies can more easily evaluate the full environmental impacts of oil spills — and then enact restoration to make up for that harm.

(Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council) Photos of oil-soaked birds and other wildlife in Prince William Sound reinforced just how inadequate the patchwork of existing federal, state, and local laws were at preventing or addressing the Exxon Valdez oil spill. While lawmakers took nearly a year and a half—and a few more oil spills—to pass the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, this landmark legislation was without a doubt inspired by that major oil spill. (After all, the law specifically “bars from Prince William Sound any tank vessels that have spilled over 1,000,000 gallons of oil into the marine environment after March 22, 1989.” In other words, the Exxon Valdez.) In the years since it passed, this law has made huge strides in improving oil spill prevention, cleanup, liability, and restoration. 3. The end of single-hull tankers Evidence of the success of double-hull tankers: The Norwegian tanker SKS Satilla collided with a submerged oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009 and despite this damage, did not spill any oil.

(Texas General Land Office) This image of a damaged ship is not showing the T/V Exxon Valdez, and that is precisely the point. The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker with a single hull, which meant that when it hit ground, there was only one layer of metal for the rocks to tear through and release its tanks of oil. But this 2009 photo shows the Norwegian tanker SKS Satilla after it sustained a major gash in its double-sided hull — and didn’t spill a drop of oil. Thanks to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, all new tankers and tank-barges were required to be built with double hulls to reduce the chance of another Exxon Valdez situation. January 1, 2015 was the final deadline for phasing out single-hull tankers in U.S. waters. 4. Oiled otters and angry kids Policymakers weren’t the only ones to take note and take action in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Second grader Kelli Middlestead of the Franklin School in Burlingame, California, was quite upset that the oil spill was having such devastating effects on one of her favorite animals: sea otters.

So, on April 13, 1989, she wrote and illustrated a letter to Walter Stieglitz, Alaskan Regional Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to let him know she felt that the oil spill was “killing nature.” Indeed, sea otters in Prince William Sound weren’t declared recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill until 2013. Other species still haven’t recovered and in some sheltered beaches below the surface, you can still find pockets of oil. 5. Oil and killer whales do mix (unfortunately) Killer whales swimming in Prince William Sound alongside boats skimming oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill (State of Alaska, Dan Lawn). One of the species that has yet to recover after the Exxon Valdez oil spill is the killer whale, or orca. Before this oil spill, scientists and oil spill experts thought that these marine mammals were able to detect and avoid oil spills. That is, until two killer whale pods were spotted swimming near or through oil from this spill.

One of them, a group nicknamed the “AT1 Transients” which feed primarily on marine mammals, suffered an abrupt 40 percent drop in population during the 18 months following the oil spill. The second group of affected killer whales, the fish-eating “AB Pod Residents,” lost 33 percent of their population, and while they have started to rebound, the transients are listed as a “depleted stock” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and may have as few as seven individuals remaining, down from a stable population of at least 22 in the 1980s. Building on the lessons of the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills, NOAA has developed an emergency plan for keeping the endangered Southern Resident killer whale populations of Washington and British Columbia away from potential oil spills. 6. Tuna troubles A normal yellowfin tuna larva (top), and a larva exposed to Deepwater Horizon crude oil during development (bottom). The oil-exposed larva shows a suite of abnormalities including excess fluid building up around the heart due to heart failure and poor growth of fins and eyes. (NOAA) How does crude oil affect fish populations?

In the decades since the Exxon Valdez spill, teams of scientists have been studying the long-term effects of oil on fish such as herring, pink salmon, and tuna. In the first couple years after this spill, they found that oil was in fact toxic to developing fish, curving their spines, reducing the size of their eyes and jaws, and building up fluid around their hearts. As part of this rich research tradition begun after the Exxon Valdez spill, NOAA scientists helped uncover the precise mechanisms for how this happens after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The photo here shows both a normal yellowfin tuna larva not long after hatching (top) and a larva exposed to Deepwater Horizon crude oil as it developed in the egg (bottom). The oil-exposed larva exhibits a suite of abnormalities, showing how toxic chemicals in oil such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can affect the embryonic heart. By altering the embryonic heartbeat, exposure to oil can transform the shape of the heart, with implications for how well the fish can swim and survive as an adult. 7.

Caught between a rock and a hard place The boulder nicknamed “Mearns Rock,” located in the southwest corner of Prince William Sound, Alaska, was coated in oil which was not cleaned off after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. This image was taken in 2003. (NOAA) Not all impacts from an oil spill are as easy to see as deformed fish hearts. As NOAA scientists Alan Mearns and Gary Shigenaka have learned since 1989, picking out those impacts from the noisy background levels of variability in the natural environment become even harder when the global climate and ocean are undergoing unprecedented change as well. Mearns, for example, has been monitoring the boom and bust cycles of marine life on a large boulder—nicknamed “Mearns Rock”—that was oiled but not cleaned after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. What he and Shigenaka have observed on that rock and elsewhere in Prince William Sound has revealed large natural swings in the numbers of mussels, seaweeds, and barnacles, changes which are unrelated to the oil spill as they were occurring even in areas untouched by the spill.

Read more about how these scientists are exploring these challenges and a report on NOAA’s involvement in the wake of this spill. 8. A game culture The game “On the Rocks: The Great Alaska Oil Spill” challenges players to clean all 200 miles of shoreline oiled by the Exxon Valdez — and do so with limits on time and money. (Credit: Alaska Resources Library and Information Services, ARLIS) Just as the Exxon Valdez oil spill touched approximately 200 miles of remote and rugged Alaskan shoreline, this spill also touched the hearts and minds of people far from the spill. References to it permeated mainstream American culture in surprising ways, inspiring a cookbook, a movie, a play, music, books, poetry, and even a board game. That’s right, a bartender from Valdez, Alaska, produced the board game “On the Rocks: The Great Alaska Oil Spill” as a result of his experience employed in spill cleanup. Players vied to be the first to wash all 200 miles of oiled shoreline without running out of time or money. 9.

Carrying a piece of the ship The rusted and nondescript piece of steel on the left was a piece of the tanker Exxon Valdez, recovered by the salvage crew in 1989 and given to NOAA marine biologist Gary Shigenaka. It was the beginning of his collection of Exxon Valdez artifacts and remains the item with the biggest personal value to him. The piece of metal on the right, inscribed with “On the rocks,” is also metal from the ship but was purchased on eBay. (NOAA) One NOAA scientist in particular, Gary Shigenaka, who kicked off his career working on the Exxon Valdez oil spill, was personally touched by this spill as well. After receiving a small chunk of metal from the ship’s salvage, Shigenaka began amassing a collection of Exxon Valdez–related memorabilia, ranging from a highball glass commemorating the ship’s launch in 1986 (ironic considering the questions surrounding its captain being intoxicated the night of the accident) to the front page of the local paper the day of the spill.

Plan to replace tanker escort in Prince William Sound raises concerns in Valdez | Alaska Public Media Plan to replace tanker escort in Prince William Sound raises concerns in Valdez tweet Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, is splitting with its longtime provider of oil spill prevention and response services in Prince William Sound. Crowley Marine Services announced last week that its bid to continue the work has not been accepted. And in a region where the memory of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill remains fresh, that decision is raising concerns. Download Audio U.S. Navy Mechanized Landing Craft anchored along the shoreline as Navy and civilian personnel position hoses during the Exxon Valdez oil spill clean-up on Smith Island in Prince William Sound, March 24, 1989. (Public domain photo by PH2 POCHE) Right now, Crowley provides the escort tugboats that accompany oil tankers out of Prince William Sound; it also manages the oil spill response barges that would be first on the scene were there ever an accident. The company has held at least part of that contract for more than 25 years and has provided all the ship escort and response vessel services for the last decade.

As of July 2018, Crowley Marine Services will no longer provide oil tanker escort tugs or oil spill response in Prince William Sound. Screenshot March 22, 2016 “It’s a key oil spill prevention and response measure for Prince William Sound,” said Donna Schantz, who heads up the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, a watchdog group set up by Congress after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. What’s at stake is more than just a contract, she said. “It’s a very, very important role.” But Crowley’s contract is up for renewal — and last week, they announced their bid has been rejected. It’s not yet clear who might take their place. The bidding process isn’t complete. Schantz said she and many others in Valdez were taken by surprise. The current system, she said, is working pretty well. “The fact that we haven’t had a major oil tanker incident is a pretty good indicator,” she said. “I think Crowley’s done a really good job.” Crowley has made it clear the break-up isn’t its choice. Representatives wouldn’t speak by phone, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

But in a press release, CEO Tom Crowley said his company “bid this contract very aggressively and [is] extremely disappointed.” Crowley also couldn’t offer any details as to why their bid was rejected. Alyeska spokesperson Kate Dugan said she can’t comment while the bidding process is still underway. “It’s a competitive landscape, and that’s all I can really say about that,” Dugan said. “The details of the contract, not just the contract itself, but the whole process of how and why we make decisions like this, is to protect the privacy of the bidders and to get the most competitive deal we can get.” Alyeska operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and its Valdez terminal, and is controlled by the pipeline owners, primarily ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips. Dugan said Alyeska is committed to protecting Prince William Sound, which is why it started the bidding process well before the current contract expires in 2018. “We were deliberate in that so that we could make sure that any transition, if there was going to be a transition, would be thoughtful and honor the commitment we have to Prince William Sound,” she said.

Dugan couldn’t confirm what company – or companies – are still in the running. But Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore told the Alaska Dispatch News that they are competing for the contract. Edison Chouest has operations worldwide, but they are perhaps best known in Alaska for the Aviq tugboat, which was pulling Shell’s arctic drill rig, the Kulluk, across the Gulf of Alaska in 2012 when the rig broke loose and grounded off Kodiak. Meanwhile, Crowley employs about 250 people in Valdez. In its statement, the company said it would “look for opportunities to redeploy” employees. But Alan Cote, national president of the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific, which represents about 150 deckhands, engineers and cooks working for Crowley, said it would be hard for any company to absorb that many people. His members are worried, he said, “especially now, with the reduction in oil exploration and production in Alaska. It’s really a catch-22 for these workers, the union and the company.” Schantz, of the Citizens’ Council, said her group will work with whatever company wins the contract.

But, she said, whoever it is will face a steep learning curve. “We don’t know yet, but we are assuming we’re going to have new tugs coming in, new barges, new people,” she said. “And just pulling all those pieces together, and making sure that the prevention and response in place isn’t compromised during that transition process is going to be significant.” Crowley will continue providing services through June 2018. Alyeska expects to announce its new contractor by early summer. SHARE Opinion: After 25 years, Exxon Valdez oil spill hasn't ended - CNN.com Opinion After 25 years, Exxon Valdez oil spill hasn't ended By Marybeth Holleman Updated 2:03 PM ET, Tue March 25, 2014 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – Twenty five years ago on March 24, more than 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound after Capt. Joseph Hazelwood ran the Exxon Valdez into Bligh Reef.

Hide Caption 1 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – An Exxon Valdez oil spill worker recovers and cleans a bird covered in crude oil. At least 1,000 ducks and 250,000 seabirds were killed by Exxon Valdez crude oil, according to studies. Hide Caption 2 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – Workers dry off a sea otter after it was cleaned up. About 2,800 sea otters died the first year after the spill -- right afterward 1,000 carcasses were found -- and hundreds more have died since from digging clams in beaches that were still contaminated with oil. Hide Caption Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – A Valdez worker wipes oil off the rocks on the shoreline. Hide Caption 4 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – A cleanup worker checks gunk trapped by a floating boom in the Prince William Sound after the spill.

Hide Caption 5 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – A fisherman inspects a dead California gray whale covered in oil on the northern shore of Latoucha Island, Alaska. Hide Caption 6 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – A worker demonstrates the thick coverage of the toxic crude oil washed up on Smith Island, Alaska. Hide Caption 7 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – A responder shoots low-pressure hot water on an oil-soaked beach at Eleanor Island, Alaska. Hide Caption 8 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – Volunteers bathe oil-covered birds in buckets filled with water and dish detergent. Hide Caption 9 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – The oil from the Exxon Valdez spread through the Sound and out into the Gulf of Alaska, damaging over 1,300 miles of some of the most remote, wild shoreline in this country.

Hide Caption 10 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – Tugboats tow the Exxon Valdez off Bligh Reef to a harbor for repair and salvage efforts, two weeks after the beginning of the oil disaster. The tanker changed names and owners several times, and was bought in 2012 by an Indian company, which scraps ships for steel and spare parts. Hide Caption 11 of 12 Photos: Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill – Capt. Joseph Hazelwood, center, stands with his attorney during his arraignment on fugitive charges stemming from the grounding of the Exxon Valdez. An Alaska jury cleared him on a felony charge but he was convicted of negligent discharge of oil, a misdemeanor, for which he performed community service. Hide Caption

Question: What tanker spilled oil in Prince William Sound?
Answer: Exxon Valdez