Oil Spills

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is nothing but a harsh reality that most people were unconcerned about until the disaster of the Exxon Valdez. The Valdez spill, tragically unnecessary though it was, has served as a laboratory for scientists, in which they can study the effects of oil pollution and experiment with new cleanup methods. It has also served as a costly lesson in the pitfalls of petroleum shipping and the shortcomings of emergency plans. It is time for us to learn from such an expensive lesson, and learn the horrid truths behind oil-spills; its cause, its effect and its solution.
When most people hear the words oil-spill, they picture the wreck of a huge tanker like the Exxon Valdez. But not all oil-spills happen this way. Some are the result of mistakes made by crewmembers as some are caused by mechanical failures. Most of it, however, involves human beings and their daily transportation of petroleum. But crude oil was gushing into the environment long before humans existed. The first were ...

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was made. And Mother Nature has paid the cost.
The damage of an oil-spill goes deeper than any sea, higher than any sky. The oil doesn't stay in one place, but moves along with the flow of the waters. Shortly after the Exxon Valdez incident, the oil traveled far, tainting shorelines on the Kenai Peninsula, the Alaska Peninsula, and scores of islands. In all, the spill fouled 1,200 miles of coastline. That's not all. The dangers of petroleum to wildlife are well established. Seabirds can become too heavily coated with oil to fly and when they try to clean the oil from their feathers with their beaks, it poisons them. Sea otters and seals contaminated with oil may suffer from ...

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