Oil Spills

[GordMay]

There were 137 oil spills in the U.S. in 2018 [1]. And according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s incident data [2], there were 27 in 2020. While the media focuses on the most destructive spills, like Exxon's infamous Valdez spill, every incident spells disaster for the environment.

Oil spills never really get ‘cleaned up’, as evidenced by the 2004 Taylor Energy spill, in New Mexico [3].
And, while technology has improved to locate and monitor spills, offshore drilling continues to ramp up along the coastal United States [The northern Gulf of Mexico is dotted by a thousand-plus drilling platforms, which are, in turn, connected to roughly 10,000 underwater oil wells].

There are three oil spills that stand out in American history, each of which was the largest oil spill into American waterways at the time.

In 1969, a blowout on an offshore platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, spilled over four million gallons of oil.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska, spilling over 11 million gallons of oil.

The largest marine oil spill in all of U.S. history was the Deepwater Horizon spill. On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people. Before it was capped three months later, approximately 134 million gallons of oil had spilled into the ocean. That is equivalent to the volume of over 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools. An $8.8 billion settlement for restoration was reached in 2016, and restoration is still continuing today.

“Largest Oil Spills Affecting U.S. Waters Since 1969" ~ NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration ➥ https://response.restoration.noaa.go...ters-1969.html

[1] ➥ https://blog.resourcewatch.org/2019/...they-happened/

[2] ➥ https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/raw/index

[3] ➥ https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/lo...er-heard-about