Amiel B. Guevarra BS Ece 3-2 Environmental Engineering Written Report: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill I.About the Exxon Valdez Ship The tanker was 301 meters long, 50 meters wide, 26 meters depth, weighing 30,000 tons empty and powered by a23.60 MWdiesel engine.The ship was able to transport up to 235,000 m³ at a sustained speed of 30 km/h. Her hull design was of the single-hull type, constructed byNational Steel and Shipbuilding Company inSan Diego,California. She was a relatively new tanker at the time of the spill. II.Exxon–Valdez Oil Spill Disaster A.Events that Occurred On March 23, 1989 at 9:12 p.m. the oil tanker boat known as the Exxon Valdez ; under the command of Captain Joseph J. Hazelwood , was scheduled to transport over 60 million gallons of oil from Prince William Sound to Long Beach, California to be refined over a 5-day time span. Due to some ice fragments that had broken off from the Columbia glacier, Capt. John Hazelwood had decided to take Exxon Valdez off its normal route to steer clear of the glacier pieces. The pilot maneuvered the ship through the Valdez Narrows and then returned the controls to the ship’s pilot. After passing all the major icebergs and dangerous areas, the Captain of the ship handed the controls to the third mate and the able seaman. The ship was then put into autopilot. Unfortunately, the ship struck the rocks of Bligh Reef on 24 th March, 1989. The “grounding” of the ship ruptured the ship’s hull, which lead to the oil spill. Through a lot of unforeseen mistakes and lack of communic ation at about 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989, Exxon Valdez ran across the Bligh Reef.
