ANCHORAGE, Alaska 鈥� It was just after midnight on March 24, 1989, when an Exxon Shipping Co. tanker ran aground outside the town of Valdez, Alaska, spewing millions of litres of thick, toxic crude oil into the pristine Prince William Sound.
The world watched the aftermath unfold: scores of herring, sea otters and birds soaked in oil, and hundreds of kilometres of shoreline polluted. Commercial fishermen in the area saw their careers hit bottom.
This month marks 30 years since the disaster, at the time the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Only the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has eclipsed it.
The 300-metre Exxon Valdez tanker was bound for California when it struck Alaska鈥檚 Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. It spilled 42聽million litres of crude oil, which storms and currents smeared across more than 2,000聽kilometres of shoreline.
The oil also extensively fouled spawning habitat in Prince William Sound for herring and pink salmon, two of its most important commercial fish species.
Fishermen and others affected by the spill dealt with ruined livelihoods, broken marriages and suicides. Exxon compensation cheques, minus what fishermen earned on spill work, arrived too late for many.
Most of the affected species have recovered, but the spill led to wide-scale changes in the oil industry. Today, North Slope oil must be transported in double-hull tankers, which must be escorted by two tugs. Radar monitors the vessel鈥檚 position as well as that of icebergs.
