The Ship Of The Cargo

of oil shipped from Alaska is carried in aging tankers with higher risk of leaking. Only 3 of 26 have double-hulls and those are more than 20 years old. There are three main oil

Initial government response to the disaster proved challenging due to the remote location of Prince William Sound. As a result, this led to a slow and inadequate clean up of oil in the Alaskan waters. The oil clean up took approximately four years, until the clean up efforts were eventually called off by the

Oil is marked as the most used non-renewable natural resource throughout the planet. Innovations in the automobile technology has increased the demand for hydrocarbons as its used for the source of heat and light. Development in the petrochemical industry boosted the oil supply throughout the world. Today we have miles and miles of wired petroleum pipelines and tons of crude oil on the go. The quantity of oil transported over the sea has enormously increased in volume with tankers from a capacity of 100,000 to 500,000 tons resulting in increased possibilities of spillage by accident. In the event of an accident, oil pollution will be encountered in the marine environment or in inland water.

Twenty seven years ago, tragedy struck the cold Pacific waters of Bligh reef in Alaska. March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill took place. It was a devastating and horrific event that took more life than you can could count within the same hour. It is said to be the cause of mischeck and improper equipment supply. The cause was so big, no one noticed it. Such a massacre of wildlife could have been avoided if only they took the time to care.

An estimated amount of 206 gallons were let loose in the water.This oil spill has made the records of being one of the largest oil spills that has ever occurred. It happened when an oil well approximately a mile below the surface.blew out. In addition, this caused an explosion on the BP Horizon rig that killed 11 people. Experts made many attempts to stop the oil flow but it took time to reach success. However, every minute passing by is a very crucial one. Within as little as one day 2.5 million gallons were released into the water. The well was capped on July15, 2010. Meaning that the oil leaked for a grand total of 85 days. Resulting in 572 miles of the Gulf Shore being covered in oil. Not to mention the hundreds of animals found and taken into care due to the oil spill. Of course long term effects won’t be able to be further approached until time passes and experts are able to have obtained enough data throughout the years. However, experts have concluded that the damage from this oil spill will not be completely over with until years to come. Still today clumps of oil are being found coming from the shore. The oil is not the only thing to worry about however. Chemicals still remain in the environment and therefore can still affect the nature and can result in a chemical reaction which may be harmful. If parts of the oil are not able to reach oxygen it can just be a big toxic reservoir damaging the environment waiting to cause trouble.The only way to remove things like this is mechanically which only further destroys the habitat. Al in all it is a lose lose

· an LA Times article on the “1969 Oil Spill that changed oil and gas exploration forever”

It was estimated by Exxon that 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of Wabasca heavy crude was spilled from the breach (Koon and Peacock 2013). Due to elevated Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) readings and due to the amount of oil present on the ground and in the street, 22 homes were evacuated. The heavy crude oil released made its way down a residential road, into a bar ditch, into an unnamed creek, and then into a stream to a cove of Lake Conway (Schwirtz 2012). Figure 1 and 2 are pictures of some of the affected areas and spillage into residential property.

oil spill happened five years ago and nearly 5 barrels of oil was spilt into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill was caused from an explosion through the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The main effect from this oil spill was the losses of the animals. Causing many to almost go extinct. As a result from the oil spill the earth has had—losses from pollution, the cost, and the damage of people.

Gill, Duane A., J. Steven Picou, and Liesel A. Ritchie. "The Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills: a

Prudhoe Bay crude oil, the type of oil the Exxon Valdez was carrying, was Class C crude oil. The issues caused by the oil spill included the contamination of 1,300 to 1,500 miles of Alaskan shoreline, an estimated death of around 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, up to 22 killer whales, and billions of salmon and herring eggs, and the loss of 2.8 billion dollars that could have been made by the fisheries and tourist sites in Alaska.

On April 28th, 2010 cleanup crews were rushing to clean up a huge oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. This spill occurred because of an oil rig explosion that took place on April 20th. The oil spill was threatening miles of coast line in four different states, and not to mention marine wild life that live in those waters. This oil spill soon became the worst oil spill the United States had ever seen. There were 126 workers on board the oil rig when it exploded, most of the workers escaped, but eleven were missing but then confirmed dead. The cause of the explosion is being investigated. Since the explosion, experts estimated a total of 210,000 gallons of oil were spilling into the gulf. Experts are also worried about the sea life and how

USDC (2012) reports that on April 20, 2010 examinations of the world concentrated on an oil platform in the Gulf, around 50 miles off the Louisiana coastline. The mobile drilling unit Deepwater Horizon, which was being made used to drill an experimental well for BP Exploration and Production, Inc. (BP), violently blew up, ignited and at some point sank, tragically eliminating 11 employees. However that was just the start of the catastrophe. Oil and various other compounds from the rig and the well started streaming unabated around one mile below the area. Preliminary efforts to cap the wells were not successful, and for 87 days oil ejected unmonitored and uncontrolled into the Gulf. Oil soon enough covered a huge location of hundreds of square miles, and held by the tides and currents reached the coastline, contaminating beaches, bays, estuaries and marshes from the Florida panhandle to west of the Mississippi River delta. At the height of the spill, around 37 % of the open water in the Gulf was closed to fishing.

In 2001, someone fired a rifle at the pipeline, resulting in 300,000 gallons to leak out. Likewise, in 2006, a deteriorated portion of the Prudhoe Bay pipeline resulted in a leak of 270,000 gallons of oil into the area. Furthermore in the Alaskan area, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker leaked approximately 11 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound. This massive oil spill killed over a thousand sea otters, thousands of birds, and cost more than $2 billion dollars to recover.

For example, each drill well generates thousands of gallons in drilling materials, called drilling muds, which lubricate drill bits and maintain pressure. These drilling muds contain toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium, and can bio accumulate or become concentrated into the bodies of the marine organisms. Furthermore, water extracted from an oil well, along with oil and gas, contains benzene, arsenic, and varying amounts of radioactive pollutants. These chemicals are incredibly toxic. Every oil platform discharges hundreds of thousands of gallons of this byproduct every day, contaminating waters both local and those that are down current from the discharge. On average, oil and gas exploration wells spew roughly 50 tons of nitrous oxide, 13 tons of carbon monoxide, 6 tons of sulfur oxide, and 5 tons of volatile organic chemicals (Savitz 1).In March of 1984, in the Prince William Sound of Alaska, a ship named the Exxon Valdez struck a coral reef and spilled 38 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. As many as 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, 22 orcas, and an unknown number of salmon and herring died because of the oil spill. The damage and cleanup costs following the Exxon Valdez spill were so extensive Exxon paid out more than one billion dollars to federal and state

The spill occurred at midnight on March 24th, 1989 when the tanker ran aground on the Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound of Alaska. The tanker, which filled up in Valdez, Alaska, was headed to Los Angeles, California (Cleveland, 2008). Several factors are said to have contributed to the grounding. First, the tanker was traveling outside of the shipping lanes, in an effort to avoid ice. Then due to fatigue, the third mate failed to maneuver the ship properly, while the ship captain provided poor navigation, because he was intoxicated. The tanker spilled approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil. Two days after the spill, a powerful storm with winds over 70 mph hit the Alaskan coast, which transformed the oil into mousse and tar balls (Cleveland, 2008). The mousse consisted of 67% water and 33% oil, and had a volume that was three times larger than the pure oil spilled. This spill has caused countless economic and ecological problems that the Alaskans had to deal with in the short run and are still dealing with in the long run. One of the immediate negative impacts was death to a great deal of marine wildlife. About 250,000 sea birds died, along with 22 killer whales, 2800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and untold numbers of fish eggs. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters until 2010. (Guterman and Pasotti, 2009)