The city of Valdez, Alaska, is nestled in a deep fjord surrounded by mountains. Tourists come to the area to see the glaciers, fish in the cold mountain-fed water and visit the ice caves. The city is also a hub for oil tankers who come up the long fjord to the marine terminal to fill cargo tanks bigger than cathedrals with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline.   

On March 23rd, 1989, a big new tanker owned by the oil giant Exxon was in one of the loading berths at the terminal. Getting into the terminal and filling the cargo tanks takes a full day. At nine p.m., the tanker, carrying more than a million barrels of oil, pulled away from the berth and headed to Long Beach, California. 

For an oil tanker, it was a pretty ordinary journey down the fjord through Prince Edward Sound to the Pacific Ocean. It had been done more than 8,000 times since oil began flowing through the Trans-Alaska pipeline.  

But this time, just three hours after leaving the marine terminal, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker got into trouble. This trouble would forever change the lives of the hundreds of residents of Prince William Sound. 

Slick Science: The toxic legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill is a collaboration between Cited Podcast and Canada’s National Observer.

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