It Changed the Oil Industry

The Exxon Valdez

Rick Steiner, consultor de conservación marina, que voló sobre el Exxon Valdez en 1989, recuerda: “Había petróleo en toda la cubierta y en el agua.”

El Exxon Valdez fue el peor derrame de petróleo en aguas de Estados Unidos, hasta el derrame del Deepwater Horizon en 2010. La cifra final de especies muertas incluía a 250.000 aves marinas, casi 3.000 nutrias, 300 focas, 250 águilas, 22 ballenas y billones de huevos de salmón.

“Es imposible limpiar todo el petróleo”, dice Steiner, “y el impacto de estos desastres puede durar en el tiempo. Treinta años después la población de ballenas en Prince William Sound todavía no se ha recuperado. Algo del petróleo todavía está allí, debajo de la arena y la grava.” En vocabulario: plowed, seabirds, sea otters, herring, linger, gravel, double hulls

Over nearly 90 days the broken well pumped 680,000 tons (approximately 5 million barrels) of oil into the Gulf…

Exxon Valdez changed the oil industry forever

Rick Steiner, the University of Alaska's marine advisor, remembers when he arrived at the site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

“My eyes were watering from the oil fumes even at 1,000 feet,” recalled Rick Steiner, who flew over the Exxon Valdez oil tanker on March 24, 1989, only hours after it had plowed into a cold-water reef. “Oil was all over the deck, and it was everywhere in the water,” said Steiner, who was the University of Alaska's marine advisor in the Prince William Sound region at the time.

The Exxon Valdez, 3 days after the vessel grounded

The Exxon Valdez was the worst oil spill in U.S. waters until the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Within days oil from the Exxon Valdez spread some 1,300 miles along the coast of what was pristine wilderness. In the first days of the spill there was no oil recovery or clean-up equipment in the water, said Steiner, who is now a marine conservation consultant at the “Oasis Earth” project.

Eventually, massive clean-up efforts involving thousands of people were undertaken. The final death toll included 250,000 seabirds, almost 3,000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales, and billions of salmon eggs. Populations of pacific herring, a cornerstone of the local fishing industry, collapsed. Fishermen went bankrupt.

It’s impossible to fully clean up an oil spill in the ocean, said Steiner, who’s been involved in many spills since 1989. And the impacts of these disasters can linger for decades. Thirty years later, local populations of killer whales and some seabirds in Prince William Sound have still not recovered, he said.

Some of the oil is still there, too. Recent sampling along the coast revealed pockets of oil buried four to eight inches under sand and gravel, often topped by stones.

In the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster, the U.S. Congress passed a law, in 1990, that required oil tankers in U.S. waters to have double hulls (unlike that fateful ship) and increased penalties for spills. Today, all of the world’s fleet of 12,000 to 14,000 tankers for oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and chemicals are double hulled.

The biggest spills in history

Perhaps surprisingly, given its notoriety and impact on the shipping industry, the Exxon Valdez spill was only the 36th worst tanker oil spill yet recorded. The biggest between 1970 and 2018 happened in 1979, off the coast of Tobago in the West Indies when the Atlantic Empress lost 287,000 tons of crude in a collision with another tanker. For comparison, the Valdez lost 37,000 tons. (There is roughly 305 gallons in a metric ton of oil.)

The worst tanker accident in the past 25 years occurred in January 2018, when two tankers collided off the coast of China. An Iranian oil tanker, the Sanchi, lost 117,000 tons of highly toxic natural gas condensate. None of Sanchi's 32 crew members survived.

By far the biggest accidental spill into the ocean was from the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. At 35,000 feet, it was the deepest well ever drilled until the blow out that killed 11 workers. Over nearly 90 days the broken well pumped 680,000 tons (approximately 5 million barrels) of oil into the Gulf.

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EPA is putting at risk the 133 million or so Americans who live near the coasts… Given the history of offshore oil drilling, it is simply a matter of when – not if – another devastating spill will occur… Thirty years after Exxon Valdez, the response to oil spills is still all wrong

Vocabulario

Plowed: crashed, hit, stroke, impacted.

Seabirds: penguins, albatrosses, petrels, pelicans, cormorants, gulls, etc.

Sea otters: nutrias.

Herring: arenque.

Linger: remain, persist.

Gravel: Grava.

Double hull: A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some distance inboard, typically by a few feet, which forms a redundant barrier to seawater in case the outer hull is damaged and leaks.

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Deepwater Horizon was an offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest oil spill to ever occur in U.S. waters.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill from satellite, 2010

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Esto es parte del archivo: El desastre del Exxon Valdez