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Remembering the Exxon Valdez
20th Anniversary stories of the Exxon Valdez disaster and lessons for Puget Sound
20 Years Later, What Have We Learned?
Where were you on March 24, 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound and spilled 11 million gallons of oil? What do you thnk we've learned... and haven't learned in the 20 years since the disaster?
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Read the stories of the folks below and send us your story of what you were doing and what you think we've learned from the disaster. Send your story and your photo here and we'll share it in the spaces below. Learn more about how we're preventing oil spills here in Puget Sound and the Straits by clicking here. We've succeeded in getting the shipping industry to pay for a permanent rescue tug stationed at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca-- but there are more battles ahead. We need to save the Oil Spill Advisory Council. Learn more here. |
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Tony Angell, artist "I was here at home on that date and like most people had no idea of the extent of the disaster until months, years, if not decades later. Visiting the area for a few weeks in the early 1990s, I got some sense of the displacement of life that occurred as the vast feeding areas for sea otter in Prince William Sound were dead zones . Thousands of otter had migrated southward to Cordova so my kayak trips across Orca Inlet were often surrounded by pods of otter the total numbers of which were over a thousand. I found many of the animals in poor condition, ragged coats, thin and starving..." (Read all of Tony's account here.) |
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Adrien Lopez, born and raised in Valdez, Alaska "While the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 20 years ago to this day can be largely attributed to triggering today’s familiar Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement, the commercial fishermen in Alaska affected by the 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound have yet to be made believers out of Exxon’s Corporate Responsibility practices. The outrage from the nation’s worst oil spill and environmental disaster on Good Friday, March 24, 1989, caused organizations and citizens the world over to move quickly to create the Valdez Principles, a voluntary code of environmental conduct for companies...." (Read all of Adrien's story here.) |
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Dr. Riki Ott, Cordova Fisherma’am, Author, Oil Spill Activist “I felt this incredible rush of adrenaline and then I got angry. I was feeling emotionally distraught about what was going to happen to the animals in the Sound. There was this incredible flood of emotions and I started thinking about what we had to do. Now, I’m looking ahead more than I’m looking back. I have been able to get proactive and harness my energy for positive change. |
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Kevin Ranker, State Senator, 40th District “On the first day we heard about the spill, they said it wasn’t that bad. Even the second day they said it wasn’t that bad. But on the third day the wind picked up and the oil spread. "The people in Alaska realized that oil spill preparedness and response were not only inadequate but also totally dysfunctional.” |
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Steve Robinson, Public Affairs Director, NW Indian Fisheries Commission “We knew then as we know now that this disastrous occurrence was something that made the Native as well as the non-Native people of that region suffer for many generations to come. We knew that the plant and animal life, from the microscopic to the giant in size would die and suffer--all due to the carelessness that led to a single catastrophic event. Yet, we also knew then, as we know now, that there are many such events and many "near events" and that it fell to us, as it always had, to scream out about it and to pray about it and to do all we could to help others understand that when they cause it, support it or, worse yet, ignore it, they are stealing something from their own grandchildren that can not be replaced.” |
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Bert Bender, Author and Former Cook Inlet Commercial Fisher “When I heard the first National Public Radio reports of the Exxon Valdez oil spill I was in Tempe, Arizona, getting ready to meet my classes in American literature that day at Arizona State University, but also looking forward to the end of the academic year and my return to Cook Inlet, where I had been a commercial fisherman for salmon every summer since 1963. We lost our gill-netting season in Cook Inlet that year and the aftereffects of the spill ended my fishing career in 1992..." (Read all of Bert's story here.) |
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Kathy Fletcher, Executive Director, People For Puget Sound “The scale of the Alaska spill was impossible to imagine. We were hungry for news about it, and as it unfolded it was just awful. It was truly catastrophic. The spill had the power to inspire prevention but it’s been a continuing struggle to follow up on lessons learned. That we’re still working to fund the rescue tug at Neah Bay is quite remarkable. When spills happen here, there is a bump of interest. We have to keep at it relentlessly. When it doesn’t happen, people start to forget that it could.” |
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Jerry Joyce, marine biologist and Seattle Audubon volunteer "I had just returned to Seattle after spending more than two months on a small ship in Antarctica when I heard the news of the grounding and subsequent spill. I still had images of one of the most remote and pristine areas of the world where we had just conducted marine mammal surveys. I closely followed the unfolding story of the grounding. I found it unimaginable that yet another wild and untamed area where I had also conducted several marine mammal and seabird studies was being despoiled by the reckless actions of a tanker crew. ..." (Read all of Jerry's story here.) |
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Dale Jensen, Dept. of Ecology Spill Program Manager "When the Exxon Valdez spill happened, I was working in the private sector as an environmental consultant. I think like most people, the full impact of what happened didn’t sink in until I saw the images of the mats of thick black crude oil, and waves of oil on the water in Prince William Sound washing up on area beaches, oiling wildlife of all kinds. I was saddened by what I saw – and how it affected the people and communities in area of the spill. I had such empathy for the tribal people, fishing community, and others whose livelihood depended on a pristine environment fight to clean up the spill..." (Read all of Dale's story here.) |
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Bill Wright, Owner-Operator San Juan Fun Safaris "I was not in Alaska at the time, but Alaska Wildland Adventure's (the company I started) phones started ringing off the hook for CANCELLATIONS. What I have learned is that 'It is not whether it will happen, but when.' The cost of prevention and response are minuscule compared to clean up and mitigation." |
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Abi Salmon, Communications Intern, People For Puget Sound “Although I was only seven years old when the spill occurred, I have distinct memories of it. I often watched the news with my parents and I remember seeing the images of the oiled animals. I didn’t really know what oil was used for or how toxic is was, but I remember wondering how anyone could have allowed a spill to happen. Even at age seven, I remember thinking that people had a responsibility to help care for the environment and what we had done to the animals just wasn’t fair.” |
