Guest guest Posted March 23, 2005 Report Share Posted March 23, 2005 Sixteen years after Exxon Valdez, tankers still not safe This week, to mark the 16th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running a special series on the environmentally precarious state of modern oil-tanker transport. Some key findings of its investigation: Post-Valdez initiatives intended to reduce crew hours, require more tug escorts for tankers, and crack down on alcohol use are all regularly dodged. Many West Coast officials have been lobbying to loosen tug-escort rules meant to help shepherd tankers safely to port. Also, even 16 years later, Exxon still hasn't double-hulled any of its Alaskan tankers. And even modern double-hulled tankers, such as those now used by ConocoPhillips to transport nearly 38 million gallons of oil at a time, are still vulnerable to spills thanks to human fallibility. More sobering, perhaps, is the fact that experts estimate it only takes some 1 million gallons of spilled oil to cripple wildlife and commerce in sensitive waterways for months or years. Sigh. straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Eric Nalder, 22 Mar 2005 <http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4621> see also, in Grist: Riki-Tikki-Savvy -- Riki Ott, author of a book on the Exxon Valdez spill, answers Grist's questions -- in InterActivist <http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4538> I LIVE OFF YOU AND YOU LIVE OF ME AND THE WHOLE WORLD LIVES OFF OF EVERYBODY SEE WE GOTTA BE EXPLOITED Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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