Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Essay

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*Oil spills are one of the most devastating man made disasters possible. The pollution causes harm to the land and the wildlife within it. The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that broke open and released 10 million gallons of oil in the ocean during its trip to Long Beach, California. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the 2nd largest oil spill in U.S. history, and it evolved the way precautions were taken when shipping and handling oil. *On March 24, 1989 an oil tanker named the Exxon Valdez, crashed into a reef on the shallow sea floor as it was taking off from Prince William Sound, Alaska. The spill was neglected and it caused the spill to be worse than it would have been if the cleanup team reacted quicker. 10 million gallons of oil spilled into the bay area and it caused an estimated 250,000 animals like otters, seals, whales, eagles, birds, and fish to die from the oil. …show more content…

Though most of the oil wasn’t cleaned up, today most of it sits under the sand in the beaches of Prince William Sound. The cost of all the cleanup including resources used and paying the people who helped cleanup cost around 2.5 billion dollars. After the spill, George H.W. Bush implemented the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. This act strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect against and respond to oil