The Exxon Valdez disaster was likely my first encounter with the notion of environmental catastrophe, and, possibly, the general notion of environmentalism. That was 1989, when the oil tanker, three football fields long and full of 210,000 gallons of crude oil, veered from a shipping lane into a cold-water reef. The resulting rip in the ship’s hull released 10.8 million gallons of oil into pristine Prince William Sound, roughly the equivalent of 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools.The spill killed 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 900 bald eagles, and 250,000 seabirds, and coated 1,300 miles of coastline. There were four human deaths resulting from the cleanup efforts; a small-town mayor in the affected area committed suicide. The area’s fishing and recreation economies were left in shreds. Twenty years after the spill, oil could still be found hidden under stony beaches; it’s estimated that 21,000 gallons of crude oil from the spill still remain.Read the rest over at Motherboard.
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