Global warming could cause another Exxon Valdez

A recent study paid for by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, and headed up by Michel C. Boufadel, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Temple University in Philadelphia, revealed that oil from the massive spill is still trapped in the beach terrain of Prince Williams Sound over two decades later.

The study cost $1.2 million and was paid for by the trust council that was created to fund long term restoration of the sound.

Just after midnight, on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez was cruising along the inbound shipping lane on autopilot. It struck a reef, tearing a hole in the tanker that allowed almost 11 million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude oil to sully the pristine waters of Prince William Sound.

This is significant, because the ship’s master, Hazelwood, requested permission from the coast guard to use the inbound lane, because the outbound lane was scattered with icebergs.

It eventually oozed out to cover over 1300 square miles of ocean.

Three days after the spill, a monster storm pushed huge quantities of oil onto the beaches and rocky shores.

The oil spill was considered to be the most devastating man-induced environmental disaster ever to happen at sea.

There were thousands of seabirds and mammals that died within the first few hours.

According to statistics, the best estimates of wildlife casualties include up to 500,000 seabirds that drowned as they became weighted down with oil; over 1,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, around 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orca whales.

It also destroyed billions of salmon and herring eggs.

In 2007, a study done by NOAA concluded that an estimated 26,000 gallons of crude oil still remained along the sandy shoreline, revealing an insidiously slow decline of less than 4% per year.

During the recent 2009 study conducted by Boufadel, it was determined that an alarming amount of that oil was still lodged between layers of surface rock and underlying sand, in spite of the intense high-pressure cleaning efforts immediately following the accident.

Boufadel explained that the water moved significantly slower through the oil-laden sand at the bottom, creating an oxygen free environment, which stifles the process to dissipate and biodegrade the contaminants. This factor has been contributing to the long term tenacity of the trapped oil.

“The oil could be maybe one foot below the beach surface and in contact with sea water with a lot of oxygen, but the oxygen doesn't get to it," Boufadel said.

The study also concluded:

“As global warming is melting the ice cover and exposing the Arctic to oil exploitation and shipping through sea routes such as the Northwest Passage, the risk of oil spills on gravel beaches in high-latitude regions will be increased."

The Exxon Valdez disaster is still impacting the wildlife of the area twenty years later.

NOAA scientists say this contamination can produce chronic low-level exposure and discourage the growth of food subsistence where the contamination is heavy.

Some ocean animals have experienced a reduction in population, while others, like pink salmon has produced a population of stunted smaller fish. Still other sea birds and mammals, like sea otters, had higher death rates for years after the spill, presumably due to eating contaminated food and ingested oil residue from grooming.

The world doesn’t need another oil-spill disaster that happened in a matter of minutes, to spoil an entire ecosystem, and then struggle with the ecological consequences for possibly half a century.

Exxon Valdez: the epitome of why global warming should be curbed and dependence on crude oil should become obsolete.

***Jean Williams 2010