Exxon+Valez

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The Exxon Valdez incident was a major oil spill. This oil spill took place on March 23, 1989 at Prince William Sound in Alaska. The drivers of the Exxon Valdez noticed icebergs in their planned route. Instead of trying to weave through the icebergs, they decided to go in another direction. On the new route, the oil tanker hit shallow land. The shallow land was not a beach, it was called Bligh Reef. Imagine an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The Exxon Valdez spilled about 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools. You also can think of it as 108 homes or 430 classrooms, 797 living rooms and 9 school gyms. This can explain about how much oil was spilled by the Exxon Valdez. The Exxon Valdez affected many animals at Prince William Sound in Alaska. The spill greatly affected sea otters and sea birds. There were about 2,800 sea otters and 250,000 seabirds killed by the spill. Harbor seals, bald eagles, killer whales, and salmon were also greatly affected by the spill. Many people complained about the large amount of sea otters dumped in crude oil because Prince William Sound was a tourist attraction. Many people came to Prince William Sound to visit the animals. Because the spill impacted 1,300 miles, it took the Exxon Valdez Company four summers to clean up the spill. Some oil may still remain on the beaches. It took 10,000 workers, 1,000 boats, 100 airplanes, and the Navy, Army, and Air Force to clean up the spill. Exxon spent about $2.1 billion for the clean up. As you see cleaning up the oil spill not only affected the marine environment but also affected the economical crises as billions had to be paid.