On this day in 1989 an oil tanker, the
Exxon Valdez,
ran aground in
Prince William Sound off the Alaskan coast,
spilling 240,000 barrels (42,000 m³) of crude oil into the sea; given the remote location of the accident and the time of year, the cleanup effort was severely hampered. Rumours have continued to dog the ship's master
Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood that he was drunk at the time of the accident...

The story has an interesting Vancouver angle; my buddy Nyac (
pictured) was rescued from the muck and brought to live at the
Vancouver Aquarium as a pup - where she lived, alongside her buddy Milo, until her death in 2008. Although Nyac was 20 years old when she died - twice the age she could have expected to attain in the wild - when she died she was the first sea otter ever to have been diagnosed with leukemia - likely as a reult of her exposure to crude oil as a pup all those years ago.
In fact, for years I had a picture of them linking paws on my keychain, as well as pictures of the two of them cavorting on my hard drive which are now treasured mementos.
In another one of those
spooky coincidences that occasionally happens, another oil tanker (this time the
Amoco Cadiz) caused another, much worse, oil spill off the Brittany coast of France on the same day, only in
1978.
*
share on:
facebook