Oil Spills

Calamitous oil spills in recent years have focused attention on the devastation the world's leading energy source can wreak on the environment. In Alaska, the 1989 grounding of the supertanker Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound caused the worst U.S. oil spill ever and prompted Congress to pass stringent oil-pollution legislation. In the Persian Gulf, “ecoterrorism” committed by Iraqi forces during the gulf war left hundreds of wells burning and oil free-flowing out of Kuwait's refineries and oil-shipping terminals. With the United States and much of the global community increasingly dependent on petroleum moved by supertankers, oil spills will continue to threaten the environment for the foreseeable future.