Fifteen years ago this week, the Exxon Valdez slammed into Bligh Reef and spilled over 40,000 tons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.
What ensued 1,500 miles of oiled shoreline, several hundred thousand dead birds and marine mammals remains the most damaging oil spill in history. Not even the 1.7 million tons of oil unleashed by Saddam Hussein on his retreat from Kuwait in 1991 was as damaging; in the warm climate of the Persian Gulf, 40 percent evaporated within a few weeks.
We are compelled to continue paying attention to the Alaska oil spill for the same reason we study history: to learn from past mistakes. Certainly, Puget Sound can learn from the Alaska spill. It's the same old, weather-beaten, mostly single-hull tankers, carrying the same thick toxic Alaska North Slope crude, that ply the waters of Puget Sound every day waters and shorelines more similar to Alaska than to Iran. It could happen again; it could happen here.
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