Instead, he believed from the charts he had studied that it would be possible to steer safely through the sharp rocks of the reef, shortening the time and distance of the trip (Streissguth & Chandler, 2003). Just after midnight, the ship struck the reef, and the disaster began. Soon thereafter, accusations began flying. Hazelwood had a history of drunk driving (of his car), and admitted to having several drinks between six and eight hours before the incident, and prosecution in his trial attempted to prove that he was drunk when the accident occurred. Instead, he was found guilty only of a misdemeanor charge, fined $50,000 and ordered to complete one thousand hours of community service, despite his claim to complete innocence (Streissguth & Chandler, 2003). Regardless of who caused the accident, its effect was immediately recognizable, and continues to this day (Piatt et al., 1990; Valdez, 2007). In all, an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 birds were killed as a result of the oil spill,...

The clean-up effort at beaches was often thwarted by tides, with freshly steam-cleaned and hand-polished rocks being covered with oil again as currents shifted and the massive spill moved to cove the beaches again (Valdez, 2007). An interesting die effect of the spill was a huge economic boom for the town of Valdez, where Exxon set up its headquarters for the clean up operation, but in no way did this offset the cost of covering a 3000,000km area of water with slick and untreated crude (Valdez, 2007; Piatt et al., 1990).