Word: valdez
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...million. "On the surface, Prince William Sound looks like it has regained its majesty," says Keith Colburn, an Alaskan fisherman and one of the stars of the reality TV series The Deadliest Catch. "But below the surface it's completely different." (Listen to Colburn talk about the Exxon Valdez anniversary on this week's Greencast...
...Alaskans like Colburn are worried that on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Valdez accident, the spill and its toll are in danger of being forgotten - even as new offshore oil and gas exploration is being considered in Alaska. In 2007, former President George W. Bush ended a long-standing executive ban on offshore oil drilling in Bristol Bay in the southeastern waters of the Bering Sea, potentially opening up what's been called America's "fish basket" to the fossil fuels industry. Although the Obama Administration has slowed the process, it hasn't stopped it - and Alaska...
...industry claims that safety standards have improved, and that the chances of another accident are small. But to environmentalists, the Valdez is still a looming reminder that oil will always threaten the vulnerable marine environment - and that a single mistake can have ramifications that last for decades. "If it's lost, it's lost forever," says Margaret Williams, the Alaska director for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which is calling for Bristol Bay and other parts of the Arctic to be made "no-go zones" for oil and gas development. "There are lessons to be learned from the Exxon Valdez...
...accident notwithstanding, even the work of setting up offshore oil drilling could impact the marine environment. The oil industry uses seismic blasts as part of initial exploration, and environmentalists fear that sound waves could harm nearby fish. But if there were an accident on the scale of the Valdez in Bristol Bay, where more than 40% of all wild seafood consumed in America is caught, the result would be not just an environmental disaster, but also an economic one. The Bristol fisheries bring in over $2 billion to the Alaskan economy annually - losing the bay even for a short time...
...soon as the world economy recovers, so will demand for oil and the pressure to drill offshore in Alaska. And that pressure will surely only grow as climate change causes the Arctic ice to recede. But that is precisely the lesson that must be remembered from the Exxon Valdez: that some parts of the world are too precious to be risked for a few million barrels of oil. "This place was a Shangri-la of the Arctic, a very special place," says Williams. "And today it's lost...