exxon valdez

In this episode we take a look back at one of the biggest environmental disasters of all time. The Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989 and dumped 10.8 million gallons of oil into the water.   Prince William Sound was so remote that it could only be gotten too by boat or air, and that made getting to it in order to clean the spill up nearly impossible for Exxon and the Government.  The result was that the oil drifted everywhere, eventually covering 1300 miles of the coast affecting dramatically a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals , and various bird, and other wildlife. 

President Bush was forced to act as fast as possible to reverse the damage before it laid waste many of the natural resources Alaska needed to survive.  All of this tragedy was blamed on Captain Joseph Hazelwood who was accused of being drunk at the time of the accident. That proved to be untrue, and Hazelwood won a criminal case in 1990 ending that widely believed mythology. He was , in fact , not even on the bridge at the time of the accident.  He had not been drinking while on the job and the accusations stemmed from a DUI arrest he had received some 6 months earlier while off from work. 

Years later , Exxon was found to have been negligent in how it operated its supertankers.  Three factors would eventually be listed as the cause. They were :  (from Wikipedia) 

• Exxon Shipping Company failed to supervise the master (ship's captain) and provide a rested and sufficient crew for Exxon Valdez. The NTSB found this practice was widespread throughout the industry, prompting a safety recommendation to Exxon and to the industry.[13]
• 
  
• The third mate failed to properly maneuver the vessel, possibly due to fatigue or excessive workload.[13]
• 
  
• Exxon Shipping Company failed to properly maintain the Raytheon Collision Avoidance System (RAYCAS) radar, which, if functional, would have indicated to the third mate an impending collision with the Bligh Reef by detecting the radar reflector placed on the next rock inland from Bligh Reef for the purpose of keeping ships on course. This cause was brought forward by Greg Palast and is not presented in the official accident report.[14]

It would be the Bush Administration that would supervise the clean up of the Sound, and implemented the reforms that helped make the oil industry far safer after the spill. This is that story, and the story of the nearly two decades of struggle for the Alaskans who had to try and pick up the pieces after the spill was over and the attention of the world had moved on. 

This show also discusses our host , Randal Wallace's own involvement in the debate over offshore drilling in the Carolinas, where he supported drilling for Natural Gas in an era before electric cars had so transformed the energy market in America.

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
https://podcasts.feedspot.com/american_history_podcasts/

Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

**We know there are audio issues with this episode (Tanner recorded with the wrong mic, among other things) but it has been cleaned up to the best of our abilities; we hope it doesn't distract too much from the excellent discussion we got to have!**

This week it's Jaylan Salah (@jaylansalman) on the guest mic to discuss one of the most famous maritime incidents in US history - the 1989 grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez  and the subsequent oil spill that saw portions of the Alaskan coastline devastated with lasting negative effects. 

Sources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20111101013817/http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/noaa_documents/NOAA_related_docs/oil_spills/marine_accident_report_1990.pdf

^NTSB report on the incident 

Haycock, Stephen. “‘Fetched Up: Unlearned Lessons from the Exxon Valdez.” The Journal of American History, vol. 99, no. 1, June 2012, pp. 219 - 228. 

Liszka, James. “Lesson from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Ethics & the Environment, vol. 15, no. 2, 2010. 

Palinkas, Lawrence A. “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Mental Health Impacts of Oil Spills: Lessons from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Psychiatry, vol. 73, no. 3, Fall 2012


Ritchie, Liesel Ashley. “Individual Stress, Collective Trauma, and Social Capital in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Sociological Inquiry, vol. 82, no. 2, May 2012, pp. 187 - 211. 

Shaw, David G. “The Exxon Valdez Oil-spill: Ecological and Social Consequences.” Environment Conservation, vol. 19, no. 2, Autumn 1992, pp. 253 - 258. 

a television actress from a show you’ve never heard of is murdered on her doorstep in los angeles by a crazed fan from tucson and the papers drop the tidbit that the actress became the object of the crazy’s obsession when his first obsession the girl from back east who wrote the letter to the russian president died in that small plane crash and it seems weird to share an obsession with a crazy person and you’ve never considered that the false intimacy celebrity creates could be dangerous two brothers in beverly hills murder their parents with shotguns in the family tv room and try to convince the police that it’s a mob hit related to their record producer father’s business but the police don’t buy it and the brothers are ultimately arrested 

www.weresofamous.com

www.jaimeclarke.com

@TypicaloftheX

Welcome to part 2 of our water series in the Regenerative by Design podcast series. 

In this episode, we discuss our oceans. Most discussions about regenerative agriculture are focused on land systems. We will explore the role of regeneration in the world's oceans. We will learn about mariculture, kelp farming, and fishing through the lens of Dune Lankard. Dune has spent his life on the sea as both a subsistence and commercial fisherman. He is also a globally renowned environmental activist who worked tirelessly to advocate for the Prince Williams Sound, Copper River Delta, Alaskan wildlife, and Native Peoples. We will hear about how the Exxon Valdez oil spill dramatically impacted Prince Williams Sound and how his experiences influence his problem-solving today as we face climate change. 

Dune speaks from the perspective of someone who has made their subsistence and livelihood from the sea. He describes the changes he has seen throughout his lifetime and how it has affected how humans can live in harmony with the sea. In his lifetime, he has witnessed the loss of an entire ecosystem, an economy, and the way of life disappearing in Alaska and ocean communities worldwide. 

This deep episode will make you take a step back and see the delicate balance of humanity, economics, and ecosystems in a new light.