The Exxon Valdez: 20 years later

On March 24, 1989, the 300 metre oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound in Alaska and spilled an estimated 40.9 million litres of crude oil into those waters. It was described as the worst man-made environmental disaster in US history.

According to a recent online article referencing a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study the waters and coastline look clean, but that’s only on the surface. If you dig down into the ground only a little bit you can still find pools of “brackish oil” that, 20 years later, still pollute the land.

Using funds from the original spill settlement between Exxon and the state of Alaska, scientists from NOAA have carried out major studies that show oil still remains just beneath the surface in many parts of the Sound — close enough for animals to be affected by it.

With climate change making the Canadian Arctic more accessible than it has been at any time in recorded history, and the international community eyeing the Northwest Passage as an emerging cost saving shipping lane, it is absolutely crucial that Canada gets its Arctic shipping policies and regulations right the first time.

We cannot afford an Exxon Valdez in Inuit Nunangat.

Inuit have lived along Arctic shores, and have used and occupied the Arctic waters for our very survival, for our nutritional food source, as well as for transportation, for thousands of years.

We are the major stakeholder in the Arctic and must be a part of the discussions that shape Arctic shipping policy as damage to either is damage to us.

Our survival as a people with a distinct culture depends on this sea.

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