Exxon Valdez oil spill for kids
George H
Bush was
the 41st American President who served in office from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 2001. One of the important events during his presidency was the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
The following fact
sheet contains interesting facts and information on the Exxon Valdez oil spill
for kids.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 1: The Sinking of the
Titanic is the most famous ship disaster in history, and
the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster gained notoriety as
the worst marine environmental disaster.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 2:
The Exxon Valdez oil spill happened on March 24, 1989
when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker was run aground on
Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 3: Exxon Corporation,
known as Standard Oil Company until 1972, was an oil and
natural resources company that replaced the Esso, Enco,
and Humble brands in the United States on January 1,
1973 and eventually merged with Mobil Corporation as
Exxon Mobil in 1999.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
4: The 'Exxon Valdez'
was the name of an oil supertanker operated by the Exxon
Corporation at the time of the oil spill disaster.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 5: The relatively new 'Exxon
Valdez' oil tanker was built by the National Steel and Shipbuilding
Company and launched on October 14, 1986. The huge tanker was 987 ft
long, 166 ft wide with a depth of 88 ft and had the capacity of
carrying 1 .48 million barrels of crude oil. The 'Exxon
Valdez' oil tanker weighed 213,755 deadweight tons and had 11 cargo
tanks.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 6: The story of the
Exxon Valdez oil spill began with the discovery of oil
in 1986 at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Coast of Alaska.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 7: Navigation and
maritime transit from Prudhoe Bay through Prince William
Sound presented a substantial risk of a major oil spill
and oil companies were expected to be extremely careful
regarding their shipping practices and maritime routes.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 8: At the time of the
disaster the ship was under the control of its captain
Joseph Hazelwood, the guidance of an Alaska state pilot
William Murphy, and monitored via radar by the U.S.
Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service (VTS).
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
9: The tanker was
making its 28th voyage and carried an experienced crew
of 19, plus the captain. Other members of the crew
included chief engineer Jerry Glowacki, radio officer
Joel Roberson and Chief Mate James R. Kunkel.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 10: The ship was routinely heading south
through Prince William Sound when Captain Joseph
Hazelwood made the decision to change course, outside
normal shipping lanes, in order to stay clear of
icebergs.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
11: Captain Hazelwood
then left the bridge, giving third mate Gregory Cousins
instructions to steer the Exxon Valdez back into the
original course of the southbound lane, once he had
passed Busby Island.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 12: Captain Hazelwood violated
company policy by not being on the bridge during the transit of
Valdez Narrows.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 13: Third Mate Gregory Cousins,
who had been working for 18 hours, steered the ship off course to
avoid glacial ice, then realized he was heading for Bligh Island and
the dangers of Bligh reef, a notorious navigation hazard.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 14: Cousins desperately tried to
change course to the deeper waters of the normal traffic lane but
the ship scraped and gashed into the submerged reef and ground to a
halt in a very unstable position on Bligh Reef at on March 24, 1989. The vessel was in danger
of capsizing if it floated off the reef.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 15:
The ship's single hull was ruptured and eight of the
tankers 11 cargo tanks were torn open.
Exxon Valdez
oil spill Facts - 16: Within six hours of its grounding,
the Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10.9
million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince
William Sound. By 7.00am the oil slick measured about
100 feet wide by five miles long.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 17:
The catastrophic oil spill resulted in an oil slick that
spread over 3,000 square miles and onto over 350 miles
of beaches along the remote and scenic Prince William
Sound, Alaska.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 18: At 12 p.m. the
'Exxon Baton Rouge' arrived and the remaining 80% of the
cargo (44 million gallons) was retained in the
tanker and lightered off the wrecked tanker.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 19: By this time the
oil slick was now three miles wide by five miles long.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 20: The first,
crucial, containment and cleanup efforts failed to
effective. Only 4,000 gallons of dispersant were
available in nearby Valdez, Alaska and application
equipment was practically non-existent.
Continued...
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
The following fact
sheet continues with interesting facts and information on the Exxon Valdez oil spill
for kids.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 21: In a statement on
March 30, 1989 President Bush described the Exxon Valdez
oil spill as ‘an environmental tragedy.”
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts - 22: A burning method
was conducted during the early stages of containment
efforts in hope of lifting the oil from the water. The
burning process was forced to be abandoned because of
unfavorable weather conditions.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
23: Three days after
the grounding of Exxon Valdez tanker and the disastrous
oil spill, a terrible storm pushed large quantities of
fresh oil onto the rocky shores of many beaches
throughout the sound.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
24: The Exxon Valdez
oil spill was an ecological disaster of enormous
magnitude that resulted in the destruction of billions
of salmon and herring eggs and the deaths of tens of
thousands of seabirds and fish, thousands of sea otters,
hundreds of harbor seals and sea lions, 140 bald eagles,
and more than 20 orca whales.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
25: The colossal
damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill was
far-reaching and effected terrestrial mammals, such as
deer, river otters and brown bears who inhabited the
wilderness of surrounding areas.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
26: Environmental
workers worked tirelessly to save seals, otters, and
birds that were covered in oil. The oiling of fur or
feathers caused loss of insulating capacity which led to
death from hypothermia, smothering, drowning, and
ingestion of toxic chemicals.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
27: The clean-up
operation began, but no sooner had clean-up crews
sprayed the coastline rocks with steam hoses, the
changing tides brought in a new coating of oil.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
28: The clean-up
effort involved 10,000 workers, 1,000 boats and 100
airplanes and helicopters. Exxon Corporation later
stated it had spent about $2.1 billion on the cleanup
effort.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
29: Halfway through
the summer of 1989, new technologies and techniques were
developed to help the clean-up process. The oil was
biodegraded (broken down) by combinations of
microorganisms that were sprayed onto some of the rocks
and beaches.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
30: Evaporation,
dissolution, dispersion, and photo-oxidation: The
natural evaporation process increased in the warmer
temperatures of the summer. Components of crude oil
started to dissolve in water and the dispersion process
began breaking up the oil into small droplets which
spread through the water. Sunlight began to react with
some oil constituents in the process known as
Photo-Oxidation speeding up the process of degradation.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
31: The Exxon Valdez
oil spill had a devastating impact on the economy and
caused severe financial losses to tourism and the
fishing industry
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
32: Land and business
owners, fishermen and Native American Alaskans harmed by
the Exxon Valdez oil spill began filing civil lawsuits
against Exxon Corporation.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
33: The legal cases
were eventually combined for the trial and after several
appeals by the corporation the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals decided that the corporation should pay $2.5
billion in damages.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
34: The 1990 Oil
Pollution Act was passed to make tankers safer. The act
provide for the standard regulation of double hulls on
tankers. The regulation requiring double hulls on
tankers ensured that if the outer layer of a tanker was
punctured, no oil will escape.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
34: After the spill,
the Exxon Valdez tanker was towed to San Diego,
repaired, and renamed the Exxon Mediterranean. The Exxon
Valdez tanker was banned from ever entering Alaskan
waters again. The vessel was eventually beached on
August 2, 2012.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts -
36: The captain of the
vessel, Joseph Hazelwood, was convicted of a misdemeanor
charge of negligent discharge of oil. Hazelwood was
fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community
service, which he served in Anchorage, Alaska. He was
then employed as a maritime consultant with Chalos &
Brown,the New York law firm that had represented him
during his trial.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Facts for kids
Exxon Valdez oil spill - President George H Bush Video
The article on the Exxon Valdez oil spill provides detailed facts and a summary of one of the important events during his presidential term in office. The following
George H Bush video will
give you additional important facts and dates about the political events experienced by the 41st American President whose presidency spanned from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 2001.
Exxon Valdez oil spill
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Interesting Facts about Exxon Valdez oil spill for kids and schools
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Summary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in US history
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Exxon Valdez oil spill of important, key
events
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George H Bush from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 2001
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Fast, fun facts about the Exxon Valdez oil spill
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Foreign & Domestic
policies of President George H Bush
● George H Bush Presidency and
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