Exxon Valdez

The construction of the Exxon Valdez began on July 24,1985 in National Steel and Shipbuilding company in San Diego. A single hauled ship measuring at 987 feet long and capable of holding 1.48 million barrels of crude oil down the Alaska-California-Panama line (west coast of North America). It first set sail on December 18,1986 and began hauling crude oil for Exxon. On March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez collided into Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound immobilizing the vessel and rupturing eight of the eleven cargo tanks. Spewing 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the pristine Alaskan waters contaminating over 1,500 miles of coastline. The cleanup effort was delayed by three days while Exxon scrambled to get the equipment together and that the crash site was so remote that it was only accessible by boat or plane. It costed Exxon over 2.1 Billion dollars and at its peak the clean up crew consisted of 10,000 workers, 1,000 boats, and 100 helicopters and planes. Nevertheless, less than half of the contaminated coastline was cleaned, the rest of the contaminated coastline has gone untouched to this day. The oil spill had devastating effects killing over a quarter million sea birds, about 2,800 sea otters and many other animals. Even today many species have not recovered from the spill over 25 years later animals like herring are on the verge of extinction. The cause of the crash was 100% percent human error at every reason of the blame from the captain being impaired by alcohol, the new radars for the US Coast Guard, lack of watch by the captain, and the inexperience of the third mate. Nevertheless, after the crash the Exxon Valdez was repaired for 30 million and renamed the Exxon Mediterranean and continued hauling oil for Exxon. It changed its name many times afterward and was sold to a ore hauling company in Honk Hong in 2008. It was beached in India on August 2, 2012 where it was scraped for metal. Positives of the Exxon Valdez oil spill were the Oil Pollution act of 1990, banned the use of single hulled oil ships by 2015 and all ships must be doubled hulled, and that scientists have been studying and learning of the long term effects oil has on the environment.