Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Exxon Valdez: How a Massive Oil Spill Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe
    Exxon Valdez: How a Massive Oil Spill Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe
    Exxon Valdez: How a Massive Oil Spill Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe
    Ebook76 pages32 minutes

    Exxon Valdez: How a Massive Oil Spill Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe

    By Michael Burgan

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The biggest oil spill in U.S. history that polluted the pristine waters of Alaska decades ago and killed thousands of birds, mammals, and fish, still haunts the people who are living with its aftermath. On Good Friday 1989, the huge oil tanker, Exxon Valdez, ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the water-oil that would eventually cover more than 1,000 miles of shoreline. Cleanup began immediately but there is still oil in the sound and Alaskans say life will never be the same.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCapstone Young Readers
    Release dateJan 1, 2018
    ISBN9780756557553
    Exxon Valdez: How a Massive Oil Spill Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe
    Author

    Michael Burgan

    Michael Burgan has written more than 250 books for children and young adults. His specialty is history, with an emphasis on biography. A graduate of the University of Connecticut with a degree in history, Burgan is also a produced playwright and the editor of The Biographer’s Craft, the newsletter for Biographers International Organization. He first started writing for children as an editor at Weekly Reader before beginning his freelance career in 1994. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

    Read more from Michael Burgan

    Related to Exxon Valdez

    Related ebooks

    Children's For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Sinking And Salvage

      Jun 10, 2023

      Sinking And Salvage
      14 min read

    • Article

      Curse Of The Albatross

      Aug 30, 2018

      Curse Of The Albatross
      12 min read

    • Article

      A History Written In Stone

      Nov 24, 2022

      A History Written In Stone
      13 min read

    • Article

      Tragedy Of The atlantic

      Jan 26, 2022

      Tragedy Of The atlantic
      7 min read

    • Article

      Caught In The Vortex: The Armistice Day Blizzard Of 1940

      Aug 31, 2015

      Anna C. Minch, Novadoc, William B. Davock For Great Lakes sailors, the Sunday, November 10th weather forecast did not raise any concerns. The temperature had been unseasonably high in the Midwest. The storm that had begun four days earlier on the Wes

      9 min read

    • Article

      Baked Alaska

      Jun 2, 2023

      Baked Alaska
      6 min read

    • Article

      Baked Alaska

      Jun 2, 2023

      Baked Alaska
      6 min read

    • Article

      Workhorse In The Wilderness

      Feb 22, 2016

      Workhorse In The Wilderness
      11 min read

    • Article

      Book Excerpt: The Cadottes

      Mar 9, 2020

      Book Excerpt: The Cadottes
      11 min read

    • Article

      This Week In History

      May 27, 2022

      This Week In History
      1 min read

    • Article

      Island Getaway

      Feb 20, 2020

      Island Getaway
      8 min read

    • Article

      1,000 Fathoms Down

      Aug 13, 2022

      1,000 Fathoms Down
      8 min read

    • Article

      Shallow Water Gems

      Aug 14, 2018

      Shallow Water Gems
      4 min read

    • Article

      Time and Tide

      Feb 16, 2022

      Time and Tide
      8 min read

    • Article

      Among The Keys

      Mar 30, 2020

      Among The Keys
      6 min read

    • Article

      Land of Perpetual Night

      Mar 2, 2020

      Land of Perpetual Night
      10 min read

    • Article

      Rescue Of A Holed Motor Yacht

      Oct 1, 2020

      Rescue Of A Holed Motor Yacht
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wreck Of The Meridian

      Dec 15, 2021

      On 4 June 1853, the Meridian left Gravesend, England, bound for Melbourne, with a 23-man crew and 84 passengers, almost half of whom were children. The first few weeks at sea were uneventful and mainly enjoyable for the passengers, although Alfred Lu

      4 min read

    • Article

      After The Storm

      Oct 16, 2018

      After The Storm
      9 min read

    • Article

      Alabama Wreck Isn't The Remains Of The Slave Ship Clotilda

      Mar 5, 2018

      A journalist had been searching for the last-known ship to deliver enslaved people to the U.S., and he thought he had found it when a storm uncovered a sunken wreck near Mobile.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Return To 60° south

      Oct 8, 2020

      Return To 60° south
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hell’s Half Acre

      Jan 29, 2020

      Hell’s Half Acre
      4 min read

    • Article

      Reborn Again In The Abacos

      Apr 17, 2020

      Reborn Again In The Abacos
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Emperor of Isle Royale

      Feb 22, 2020

      The Emperor of Isle Royale
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Exxon Valdez

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Exxon Valdez - Michael Burgan

      Cover

      Chapter One

      THE BIG ONE COMES

      In the small town of Valdez, Alaska, a group of about 30 residents crowded around a speakerphone in a local government office. It was Thursday evening, March 23, 1989, and the Easter weekend was about to begin. On the other end of the line was Riki Ott, an expert in marine science. Like many of the people in Valdez and other small towns along Alaska’s Prince William Sound, she also fished. Salmon and herring filled the waters of the sound. Fishing was an important part of the local economy — the money fishers made selling their catch helped businesses stay open. The sound was also home to bald eagles and other birds that caught the fish for food, along with sea otters, sea lions, orcas, and other mammals. Many of these animals also relied on the fish to survive.

      Another natural resource besides fish had become important to the local economy, and to Alaska as a whole. In June 1977 oil had begun flowing from Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, above the Arctic Circle, through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). For 800 miles (1,287 kilometers), the pipeline crosses some of the coldest and most isolated parts of the United States. Finally the oil reaches the Valdez Marine Terminal. There it is loaded on giant ships called tankers, which take the oil to be turned into gasoline and other petroleum-based products.

      Oil storage tanks lined the shore of the harbor in Valdez, Alaska, when oil began flowing through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in 1977.

      Many fishers on Prince William Sound, along with some indigenous Alaska people, had opposed the building of the pipeline and the terminal. They feared an oil spill could ruin their way of life. For the native Alaskans, that included hunting sea mammals that lived in the sound as well as catching fish. But with backing from the U.S. government, several oil companies were able to drill for the oil buried beneath the frozen Arctic land and transport it to other states.

      The fear of an oil spill and pollution from the Valdez Marine Terminal had not faded in the years after TAPS opened. Ships leaving the terminal sometimes had accidents, even though a major spill hadn’t occurred. Riki Ott was one of the people worried about a spill. She could not attend the meeting in Valdez on March 23 because bad weather had made it impossible to fly there from her home in the small fishing town of Cordova on Prince William Sound. No roads linked the two communities, so flying would have been the fastest way there. Instead, Ott sat by herself in a room 70 miles (113 km) away and spoke to the people at the meeting in Valdez by phone.

      Ott talked about the increasing number of tankers sailing to and from the Valdez terminal through the sound. Many of the ships, she noted, were getting too old to operate safely. And she warned that if a spill happened in open waters, it might not be contained and cleaned up quickly. Ott said the big one¹ — a massive oil spill in Prince William Sound — was bound to happen. It’s not if, but when it occurs, and we’re not going to be prepared as a community.²

      As Ott spoke on the phone, a ship loaded with oil was about to leave the Valdez Marine Terminal. The Exxon Valdez was almost 1,000 feet (305 meters) long, and, as its name suggested, it was owned by Exxon, one of seven companies that operated the pipeline and terminal. The seven had formed the Alyeska Pipeline Services Company in 1970. Exxon was the largest of the companies involved and the largest U.S. oil company.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1