Introduction Oil spills cause short and long term damage to the environment. The damaged caused by an oil spill can last for decades upon decades after the spill occurs. The purpose of this paper is to highlight some of the most notable environmental damages caused by oil spills. The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 is an excellent example of the long term ramifications of oil spills. 25 years has passed since that oil spill, and Alaska still suffers from it. Effects and Damages in Oceans, Rivers, and Fragile Aquatic Ecosystems When oil spills from tankers, rigs or pipelines, its there to stay, and for quite awhile. Oil will stick to every grain of sand, and coat everything it touches. Fibrous plants and grasses with absorb the oil, which will damage and could kill the plants ruining that level of primary production. In rivers when some of the oil stops floating on the surface it will sink and destroy fragile aquatic ecosystems, killing or bioaccumulating in fish and other organisms (Polsenberg, 2005). Even with major clean up efforts following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, a 2007 study done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found 26,000 gallons of oil from the oil spill was still in the soil all along the Alaska shoreline. NOAA determined that this residual oil was declining less than 4% each year (Polsenberg, 2005). …show more content…
The fish, shrimp, and oyster fisheries on the Louisiana coast were some of the first casualties during the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil spill (McCrea-Strub, 2011). The Exxon Valdez oil spill killed billions of salmon and herring eggs. Those fisheries still haven’t recovered (McCrea-Strub, 2011). Effects on Marine