Advocacy: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef spilling over 30 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, oiling 3,200 miles of shoreline and spreading to locations 1,200 miles away. EPC is actively working to expose the widely unknown long-term affects of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill including environmental, economic and human health impacts.

New science shows that oil is 1000x more toxic than previously understood, or than current law reflects. Many people recall the vivid images of devastation – thousands of oiled marine mammals, hundreds of thousands of oiled marine birds, and thousands of volunteers from across the United States working to contain the spill and clean oiled beaches. However, fifteen years after the spill, Prince William Sound is not clean and has not recovered. The real story of unprotected workers, acute human exposure to toxic chemicals (including those used to clean beaches) and lingering, and even fatal, health problems for literally thousands of people is only now coming to public light. The Prince William Sound herring fishery has been closed since 1999 to allow stocks to recover. The annual economic loss to Cordova alone is estimated at $50 million per year. Harlequin ducks, pigeon guillemots, harbor seals and orca whales are among the species yet to recover. Recovery is unknown for subtidal seafloor communities of plants and animals, shellfish, forage species, intertidal fish such as sand lance and forage fish such as capelin.

EPC is also working to force Exxon to pay an additional $100 million to restore wildlife and or habitat from harm that could not reasonably have been known or anticipated based on the scientific understanding of oil effects at the time, as allowed for in the 1991civil settlements between the US Federal government, Exxon and the state of Alaska.