The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) of crude oil over the next few days.
Valdez is a city in the Chugach Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to the 2020 US Census, the population of the city is 3,985, up from 3,976 in 2010. It is the third most populated city in Alaska's Unorganized Borough.
Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound, spilling her cargo of crude oil into the sea. On 24 March 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel, and bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef, resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 54th-largest spill in history.
Stephen Cambreleng Cowper is an American Democratic politician who was the sixth governor of Alaska from 1986 to 1990. He was governor during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The Richardson Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, running 368 miles (562 km) and connecting Valdez to Fairbanks. It is marked as Alaska Route 4 from Valdez to Delta Junction and as Alaska Route 2 from there to Fairbanks. It also connects segments of Alaska Route 1 between the Glenn Highway and the Tok Cut-Off. The Richardson Highway was the first major road built in Alaska.
Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood was an American sailor. He was the captain of Exxon Valdez during her 1989 oil spill. He was accused of being intoxicated which contributed to the disaster, but was cleared of this charge at his 1990 trial after witnesses testified that he was sober around the time of the accident. Hazelwood was convicted of a lesser charge, negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service.
The Alaska Raptor Center, formerly the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center, is a raptor rehabilitation center in Sitka in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located on a 17–acre campus bordering the Tongass National Forest and the Indian River. The mission of the Alaska Raptor Center is to promote and enhance wild populations of raptors and other avian species through rehabilitation, education and research. Although the main patients are raptors, especially bald eagles, the center will take any bird in need of care. The Alaska Raptor Center receives between 100–200 birds a year, with many suffering from some sort of trauma. They have treated birds with injuries from electrocution, collisions, gunshot wounds, leg hold traps, starvation, disease and lead poisoning.
The Alaska SeaLife Center is a public aquarium and Alaska's only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation facility. It is located on the shores of Resurrection Bay in Seward. It opened in May 1998, and is dedicated to understanding and maintaining the integrity of the marine ecosystem of Alaska through research, rehabilitation, conservation, and public education. It is the only facility in the world specifically dedicated to studying the northern marine environment and the only one designed at the outset to combine research with public education and visitor components. The Alaska SeaLife Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska's marine ecosystems.
Peninsula Airways, operated as PenAir, was a U.S.-based regional airline headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. It was Alaska's second-largest commuter airline operating scheduled passenger service, as well as charter and medevac services throughout the state. Its main base was Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. PenAir had a code sharing agreement in place with Alaska Airlines with its flights operated in the state of Alaska.
The Alaska gas pipeline is a joint project of TransCanada Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp. to develop a natural gas pipeline under the AGIA, a.k.a. the Alaska Gas Inducement Act, adopted by Alaska Legislature in 2007. The project originally proposed two options during its open season offering over a three-month period from April 30 to July 30, 2010. An 'open season' in layman's terms is when a company conducts a non-binding show of interest or poll in the marketplace, they ask potential customers "if we build it, will you come?".
Raptor Education Group, Inc (REGI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in Antigo, Wisconsin, United States, dedicated to caring for injured or orphaned avian wildlife. It works with and temporarily cares for birds from endangered or threatened species "for rehabilitation and educational purposes."
International Bird Rescue is a nonprofit organization that rehabilitates injured aquatic birds, most notably seabirds affected by oil spills. Founded by Alice Berkner and members of the Ecology Action, including veterinarian James Michael Harris, D.V.M. in 1971 and based in Cordelia, California, the group has developed scientifically-based bird rehabilitation techniques and has led oiled wildlife rescue efforts in more than 200 oil spills worldwide, including the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where International Bird Rescue co-managed oiled bird rehabilitation efforts in four states with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research.
The Juneau Raptor Center (JRC) was a raptor rehabilitation center in Juneau in the U.S. state of Alaska. Founded in 1987 and located in the Tongass National Forest, its mission was the rehabilitation of sick and injured eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, ravens, hummingbirds and other avian wildlife brought in from Juneau and Southeast Alaska. The JRC was licensed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to handle eagles and migratory birds, and was governed in part by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Walter Bruce "Walt" Parker was an American civil servant, policy adviser, transportation adviser, academic and local politician. Parker's career focused on the development of natural resources, transportation and infrastructure in Alaska from the 1940s to the 2000s. In 1989, Alaska Governor Steve Cowper appointed Parker as the chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which investigated the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He is credited with making important contributions to the fields of transportation, telecommunications, education, land use and urban planning within the state of Alaska. Parker was inducted into the Alaska Conservation Hall of Fame by the Alaska Conservation Foundation in 2002 for his contributions to state conservation.
Merav Ben-David is an Israeli-American ecologist, zoologist, and politician who is the chair of the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Wyoming, losing to former Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis in the general election. She ran for state representative from Wyoming's 46th District in 2022.
One Wing was a bald eagle injured during the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He ingested crude oil and, during the rescue process, fought his would-be-rescuers and broke his own wing. As a result it was amputated, and he lived out the rest of his life at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage. He served as a blood donor for other birds injured in the oil spill.
