Where were you 25 years ago today? I was probably sitting in class tapping my pencil and looking out the classroom window waiting for the bell to ring. By looking up the day, it looks as though it was a Friday. If you didn't know by this time on March 24, 1989, you would would very soon. Today was the day the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Prince William Sound.

At the time, this was one the worst man-made environmental disasters and largest oil spill.  This changed a few years ago with the Horizon explosion back in April of 2010 in terms of the amount of oil that went into the water. With the disaster in the Gulf, the response was much quicker, not that things today in the Gulf are perfect by any means but times and technology had changed in the those 20 years. The biggest difference with the Exxon Valdez spill was the location; a very remote part of the country and really of the world. It was Alaska, not much to be found, not too easy to get to.

With the wreck, the Valdez spilled 260,000-750,000 barrels or 11 million gallons of oil right in to the water. The EPA, other agencies and private organizations tried to clean it up, but it was a mess that was out of control.

The cleaning costs in 1989 dollars were just under $300 million and  the punitive damages cost Exxon five billion dollars, but then later was reduced to about half of that after appeals.

I still remember the heartbreaking videos of the oily birds and the black coastline. Even 25 years later if you dig a bit along the Alaskan coast there are still places you can find oil from the spill a quarter century ago. Since the accident or operator negligence as there were unfounded reports the captain was drunk, there have been bills and acts passed to improve the handling of oil.

This video is five years old but gives the basics.

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