The Human Spill: Economic and Social Impacts of the Response to and Recovery from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Crawford, Lauren
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History
- Abstract
- Many Americans remember the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as one of the most damaging technological disasters in American history and, until the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010, it was the largest that the United States had ever experienced. The country had never seen a spill of this magnitude in its own waters. When the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef on March 24, 1989, 11 million gallons of crude oil flooded into the Prince William Sound and coated over one thousand miles of isolated Alaskan shoreline. Almost immediately, the spill threatened the special relationship between the people of Alaska and the fragile ecosystem. The U.S. government and Exxon’s subsequent response to the disaster endangered the political, social, and economic cohesion of both native and non-native communities. Before the disaster, emergency planners doubted the possibility of a spill of such magnitude, which meant that responders were unprepared to fight the spill. As a result, poorly planned response and recovery efforts damaged the infrastructure, economies, and social cohesion of small Alaskan Native and non-native towns, with long-lasting consequences. The response became a disaster in its own right.
- Date of publication
- spring 2014
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: Boyatt Undergraduate Research Award
- Advisor
- Morgan, Michael
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Highest Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 87
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This work has no parents.