On March 24, 1989, a massive tanker captained by a man who had allegedly been drinking, sailed outside regular Alaskan shipping lanes and hit a reef, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.
The Exxon Valdez, at the time one of the most advanced tankers in the world, split, spilling approximately 40 million liters of crude oil into the delicate and pristine Arctic environment of the remote Prince William Sound.
The oil dispersed over an area of 28,000 km² and covered approximately 2,000km of rugged coastline. It killed an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 birds, fish and sea mammals.
Twenty years later, another horrific accident is waiting to happen, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned on Friday, even as the damage from Exxon Valdez continues to blight the region.
In a graphic illustration of the lingering effects of that disaster, the environmental group sent oil-crusted rocks to ministers, officials and media in the Arctic countries still wrangling over arrangements to govern a renewed resource rush to the region.
The rocks accompanied a report titled Lessons Not Learned, which recommends a moratorium on new offshore oil development in the Arctic “until technologies improve to a point where an adequate oil-spill clean-up operation can be performed.”
WWF also recommended that the most vulnerable and important areas of the Arctic be deemed permanently off-limits to oil development because oil spills would be next to impossible to clean up or would cause irreparable long-term damage.
“Governments and industry in the region remain unprepared to deal with another such disaster,” WWF warned. At the same time global warming is melting more of the ice, which increases access and exploration, making another accident more likely.
“While there has been little improvement in technologies to respond to oil-spill disasters in the last 20 years, the Arctic itself has changed considerably and is much more vulnerable today,” said Neil Hamilton, leader of WWF’s Arctic Program.
“Sea ice is disappearing and open water seasons are lasting longer, creating a frenzy to stake claims on the Arctic’s rich resources — especially oil and gas development. We need a ‘time-out’ until protective measures exist for this fragile, special place.”
Bill Chameides, dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, agrees with the WWF that despite one of the largest cleanup efforts in history much of the damage has proved irreversible.
Though many beaches and coves in the area look the same, the deeper picture tells a very different story. Digging even a little uncovers a gooey mix of oil and sand.
“People may assume that because the spill happened 20 years ago, the effects are long gone. But they persist — and may continue for years to come,” said Chameides, who estimates that it could take as much as 100 more years for all the oil to dissipate.
Oil giant Exxon spent about US$2 billion on the cleanup operation.
It was originally ordered to pay US$5 billion in punitive damages. But in a successful series of court appeals culminating in a Supreme Court decision last year, that amount has now been reduced to just over US$507 million — a tremendous blow to the fishermen and local communities who suffered from the calamity.
“Their way of life was devastated,” says local resident Sharon Bushell, the author of a book called, The Spill, Personal Stories From the Exxon Valdez Disaster. She interviewed residents about how they remember the disaster and chronicles the lost lives of the fishermen, innkeepers and mechanics.
“There was death everywhere, dead birds, dead otters, dead deer. A vast amount of oil covered the water,” said one woman. “It was a terrible scene, one to rival anyone’s idea of hell.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had