5. Major oil spills of the 20th and 21st century

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century there have been oil spills all over the world, caused either by naval accidents or during major wars. It is impossible to determine which of these oil spills had the most severe consequences for its environment. Consequently, we will sum up a number of oil spills in this environmental disaster top 10. First, we will describe some events that obtained a lot of media attention.

Amoco Cadiz

In 1978 on March 16 the Liberian super tanker Amoco Cadiz stranded on Portsall Rocks off the coast of Brittany, France because of failure of the steering mechanism at 9:15. Although Captain Pasquale Bandari hoisted the international signal for "Not Under Command" almost immediately, he did not request assistance until 11:20, when his engineer determined that the damage was irreparable. The Amoco Cadiz started drifting to shore where touching the bottom ripped open the hull and storage tanks.

The crew of the tanker was rescued by helicopter, but the ship broke in two releasing 230.000 tons of crude oil, which spread through the English Channel. The oil spill polluted approximately 300 kilometres of coastline, destroying fisheries, oysters and seaweed beds. Beaches of 76 Breton communities were polluted by oil.

Cleanup efforts were restricted for two weeks following the accident, as a result of the isolated location of the grounding and rough seas. Severe weather eventually caused the complete break-up of the ship before any additional oil could be removed from the wreck.

This was one of the largest environmental disasters known to men in the 1970's. It would be another ten years before the resulting lawsuits were wound up. In 1988 a US federal judge ordered Amoco Oil Corporation to pay 85,2 million dollars in fines, consisting of 45 million dollars for the costs of the spill and an additional 39 million dollars of interest.

Piper Alpha

On July 6, 1988 an explosion occurred on the oil and gas production platform Piper Alpha of Occidental Petroleum Ltd. and Texaco in the North Sea. Piper Alpha was located on the Piper Oilfield, about 190 kilometres from Aberdeen in 144 metres of water. There were about 240 people working on the platform. The explosion and resulting fire killed 167 of them. It is now said that evacuation plans were inadequate and therefore failed preventing any of the deaths. By the time rescue helicopters arrived, flames over 100 metres in height prevented safe approach. Only 62 workers were pulled from the sea alive.

A nearby platform called Tartan continued to pump gas into the upstream pipelines of Piper Alpha after the explosion because they did not have the authority to shut down production, even when the Piper Alpha caught fire. The released gas caused a second explosion and the fire increased, covering the entire platform.
The personnel that had the authority to order evacuation of Piper Alpha had been killed during the first explosion, which destroyed the control room. It led to people still trying to get of the platform hours after the fire had started.

The Cullen Enquiry was set up in November 1988 to establish the cause of the disaster. It was pointed out that the initial explosion was caused by a leakage of natural gas condensate building up beneath the platform, because of maintenance work on a pump and a related safety valve. It resulted in the ignition of secondary oil fires and the melting of upstream gas pipelines. Piper Alpha's operator, Occidental, was found guilty of having inadequate maintenance procedures.

Exxon Valdez

In 1989 the American oil tanker Exxon Valdez clashed with the Bligh Reef, causing a major oil leakage. The tanker had left the Valdez terminal in Alaska, navigating through Prince William Sound. Captain Joseph Hazelwood informed the coast guard they would change course to avoid collision with some small icebergs present in the region. The coast guard instructed the captain to sail north.
After Busby Island the tanker was supposed to turn back south, but it did not turn rapidly enough, causing the collision with the reef at 0:04 hours. This caused an oil spill of between 41.000 and 132.000 square meters, polluting 1900 km of coastline. The oil spill killed approximately 250.000 sea birds, 2.800 sea otters, 250 bald eagles and possibly 22 killer whales.

Exxon Mobil, the owner of the Exxon Valdez, has paid approximately 3,5 billion dollars in connection with the accident, of which 2,1 billion was meant for the cleanup operation. Both Exxon and the government have ordered investigations of the disaster, because of the large sums of money involved.
Ironically, official NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) investigations have shown that most of the damage from the oil spill was caused by the cleaning operation following the disaster. It is clamed that pressure-washing was responsible for killing most of the marine life. On stretches of beach that were uncleaned life seemed to recover after 18 months, whereas on the cleaned parts of the beach it did not recover for the next 3 to 4 years. Oil spill clean up is still performed because in the public’s opinion this is still the way to save most animals.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill had, and still has, a large deal of media attention. Many people still remember the spill today. However, Exxon Valdez did not cause the largest oil spill in human history. According to Bjorn Lomborg, it is not even in the top 10. A much larger disaster was caused for example during the Gulf War in 1991.

The Gulf War

In August 1990 Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, starting the Gulf War in which an allegiance of 34 nations worldwide was involved. In January 1991 of the Gulf War, Iraqi forces committed two environmental disasters. The first was a major oil spill 16 kilometres off the shore of Kuwait by dumping oil from several tankers and opening the valves of an offshore terminal. The second was the setting fire to 650 oil wells in Kuwait.

The apparent strategic goal of the action was to prevent a potential landing by US Marines. American air strikes on January 26 destroyed pipelines to prevent further spillage into the Gulf. This however seemed to make little difference. Approximately one million tons of crude oil was already lost to the environment, making this the largest oil spill of human history. In the spring of 1991, as many as 500 oil wells were still burning and the last oil well was not extinguished until a few months later, in November.

The oil spills did considerable damage to life in the Persian Gulf (see picture). Several months after the spill, the poisoned waters killed 20.000 seabirds and had caused severe damage to local marine flora and fauna. The fires in the oil wells caused immense amounts of soot and toxic fumes to enter the atmosphere. This had great effects on the health of the local population and biota for several years. The pollution also had a possible impact on local weather patterns.

Tricolor

In the early hours of December 14, 2002 the Norwegian ship Tricolor collided with the Bahama container ship Kariba in the French Channel. The accident was caused by fog and human errors. The Kariba was heavily damaged, but managed to reach the Antwerp harbour. The crew of Tricolor was rescued by emergency teams, which experienced low visibility that made the rescue operation very hard. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

Despite warning signals on the location of the Tricolor the Nicola collided with the wreck on December 16. The Nicola could be safely removed from the scene but the Tricolor was now much more severely damaged. The ship was declared total loss and Berger Smit started to pump 2.200 tons of oil from the wreck.

In January 2003 the oil tanker Vicky collided with the Tricolor, causing some oil from the Vicky to flow into sea and reach French and Belgium shores. Fortunately damages were limited and the Tricolor did not leak any oil.

By the end of January even more extreme weather caused Berger Smit to collide with the Tricolor wreck, which started leaking oil. It became apparent that at least 1.000 tons of oil had leaked away into the Channel. The oil reached France and Belgium, causing thousands of dead seabirds to wash ashore.

After this third collision a confederation was ordered by the French government to remove the wreck to prevent further environmental damage. Eventually, the ship was broken into nine small pieces, heaved from the water and carried away.

At this moment the sea soil still contains hundreds of cars wreckages that were once transported by the Tricolor. The freight value was approximately 49 million euros. The ship has an additional value of 40 million euros.

Other

There have been many other accidents involving oil spills throughout the years. Many received not nearly as much media attention as the ones mentioned above. Some more examples of oil spills:

- 1967 Liberian tanker Torrey Canyon spills 120.000 ton oil near Cornwall
- 1968 Witwater tanker spills 14.000 barrels of oil near Panama coast
- 1969 tanker Hamilton trader spills 4.000 barrels of oil in Liverpool Bay, England
- 1970 tanker Arrow spills 77.000 barrels of oil near Nova Scotia, Canada
- 1971 tanker Wafra spills 20.000 barrels of oil near Cape Agulhas, Africa
- 1972 tanker Sea Star catches fire after collision in Gulf of Mexico
- 1974 Dutch tanker Metulla spills 53.000 ton crude oil near South-Chilli
- 1976 Liberian tanker Argo Merchant spilled 29.000 square meters of oil near the Massachusetts coast
- 1976 Spanish tanker Urquillo spills more than 100.000 ton oil near Spain
- 1977 tanker Al Rawdatain spills 7.350 barrels of oil near Genoa, Italy
- 1977 tanker Borug spills 213.692 barrels of oil near the coast of Taiwan
- 1978 Brazilian Marina spills 73.600 barrels of oil near Sao Sebastiao, Brazil
- 1979 Betegeuse spills 14.720 barrels of oil near Bantry Bay, Ireland
- 1979 Ixtoc I exploratory well in Mexico blows out and spills 600.000 tons of oil
- 1984 Alvenus tanker grounds southeast of Cameron, Louisiana and spills 65.000 barrels of oil
- 1985 ARCO Anchorage spills 5.690 barrels of oil near the coast of Washington
- 1986 unknown oil spill reaches the coast of Georgia and is later appointed to the Amazon Vulture tanker
- 1989 Aragon tanker spills 175.000 barrels of oil near Madeira, Portugal
- 1990 tanker American Trader grounds near Huntington Beach, California and spills 9458 barrels of oil
- 1990 Cibro Savannah tanker catches fire and spills 481 square meters of oil
- 1990 Jupiter tanker catches fire in Bay City, Mexico and causes oil spill
- 1990 Mega Borg tanker catches fire and spills 19.000 square meters of oil near Galveston, Texas
- 1991 tanker Bahia Paraiso spills 3.774 barrels of oil near Palmer Station, Antarctica
- 1992 Greek tanker Aegean Sea spills 70.000 ton oil near Galicia
- 1993 Bouchard B155 tanker spills 1.270 square meters of fuel oil after collision with 2 ships
- 1996 Liberian tanker Sea Empress spills 147.000 ton oil near Wales
- 1999 Maltese tanker Erika spills 30.000 ton oil near Brittany
- 2001 tanker Jessica spills 900 ton oil near the Galapagos Isles
- 2002 Bahamese Prestige spills oil near Galicia

These are but a number of that have occurred throughout history. Unfortunately, there are many more.

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