The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989.

The tanker left the terminal at 9:12 p.m., March 23, 1989 (the deck log shows that it was clear of the dock at 9:21 p.m.), loaded with 53,094,510 gallons (1,264,155 barrels) of crude oil.

Captain Joseph Hazelwood retired to his cabin at 9:25 p.m. Harbor pilot William Murphy and Third Mate Gregory Cousins were accompanied by a single tug for the passage through the Valdez Narrows – a journey of about 7 miles.

30 minutes after numerous attempts to dislodge the ship under her own power, Captain Hazelwood radioed the Coast Guard informing them of the grounding.

[11] Multiple factors have been identified as contributing to the incident: Captain Hazelwood, who was widely reported to have been drinking heavily that night, was not at the controls when the ship struck the reef.

[18]Other factors, according to an MIT course entitled "Software System Safety" by Professor Nancy G. Leveson,[19] included: This disaster resulted in International Maritime Organization introducing comprehensive marine pollution prevention rules (MARPOL) through various conventions.

On November 26, 1984, Ronald A. Kreizenbeck (Director, Alaska Operations Office) informed the Coast Guard that the EPA suspected, due to a recent site-visitation during an 'Annual Marine Drill' that the Port of Valdez was not prepared to "efficiently respond to a major spill event".

In the letter, he stated that "[it] appears that the Vikoma boom and/or deployment vessels used may not be adequate to handle the harsh environmental conditions of Port Valdez".

[30] Because Prince William Sound contained many rocky coves where the oil was collected, the decision was made to displace it with high-pressure hot water.

However, this also displaced and destroyed the microbial populations on the shoreline; many of these organisms (e.g. plankton) are the basis of the coastal marine food chain, and others (e.g., certain bacteria and fungi) are capable of facilitating the biodegradation of oil.

At the time, both scientific advice and public pressure was to clean everything, but since then, a much greater understanding of natural and facilitated remediation processes has developed, due somewhat in part to the opportunity presented for study by the Exxon Valdez spill.

[7][32] Nine years after the disaster, evidence of negative oil spill effects on marine birds was found in the following species: cormorants, goldeneyes, mergansers, murres and pigeon guillemots.

Laboratory experiments found that at levels as low as one part per billion, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic for salmon and herring eggs.

"[38] On March 24, 2014, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the spill, NOAA scientists reported that some species seem to have recovered, with the sea otter the latest creature to return to pre-spill numbers.

They also reiterated the claim that the Coast Guard had delayed cleanup by refusing to give permission to immediately use chemical dispersants on the spill.

On May 23, 2007, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied ExxonMobil's request for a third hearing and let stand its ruling that Exxon owed $2.5 billion in punitive damages.

[citation needed] Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy has decried the ruling as "another in a line of cases where this Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs contended that Exxon bore responsibility for the accident because the company "put a drunk in charge of a tanker in Prince William Sound.

[55][56] As of December 15, 2009, Exxon had paid the entire $507.5 million in punitive damages, including lawsuit costs, plus interest, which were further distributed to thousands of plaintiffs.

[58] A 1989 report by the Coast Guard's U.S. National Response Center summarized the event and made many recommendations, including that neither Exxon, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the State of Alaska, nor the federal government were prepared for a spill of this magnitude.

The legislation included a clause that prohibits any vessel that, after March 22, 1989, has caused an oil spill of more than 1 million US gallons (3,800 m3) in any marine area, from operating in Prince William Sound.

[63] OPA also set a schedule for the gradual phase-in of a double hull design, providing an additional layer between the oil tanks and the ocean.

While a double hull would likely not have prevented the Exxon Valdez disaster, a Coast Guard study estimated that it would have cut the amount of oil spilled by 60 percent.

In the aftermath of the spill, Alaska governor Steve Cowper issued an executive order requiring two tugboats to escort every loaded tanker from Valdez out through Prince William Sound to Hinchinbrook Entrance.

These included the loss of recreational sports, fisheries, reduced tourism, and an estimate of what economists call "existence value", which is the value to the public of a pristine Prince William Sound.

When asked how they felt about the situation, a village councilor noted that they were too shocked and busy to be depressed; others emphasized the human costs of leaving children unattended while their parents worked to clean up.

[76] Several weeks after the spill, Saturday Night Live aired a pointed sketch featuring Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, and Victoria Jackson as cleanup workers struggling to scrub the oil off of animals and rocks on a beach in Prince William Sound.

The book Prince William by Gloria Rand is set on the Exxon Valdis incident, involving a young girl named Denny who assists in the environmental cleanup effort; starting with an oil-covered baby seal whom she saves and befriends.

In the seventeenth episode of Superman: The Animated Series, "Speed Demons", both Superman and the Flash fight against Weather Wizard when he interrupts their charity race to test his weather machine; demonstrating his power by creating a storm off the coast of Australia which causes an oil tanker to crash and rupturing its hull, releasing an oil spill which begins to contaminate the ocean in a manner similar to the Exxon Valdis incident.

Thankfully, it is stopped when Superman and the Flash intervene; the former sealing the rupture shut with his heat-ray vision and the latter using his speed to extract the oil from the ocean by its atoms to return it to the ship.