Graph of the Day: Affected Coastline in Exxon Valdez And BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spills

The BP Gulf Coast rig explosion is a horrible human, economic, and environmental disaster. The death of 11 employees is tragic. The spill could devastate the Gulf Coast commercial and sport fishing industries for years to come. Louisiana’s seafood industry alone is worth $2 billion annually. This is the biggest U.S. economic and environmental disaster since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The key lesson from the Exxon Valdez is that the oil spill continues to have an impact today—more than two decades after the event. The length and breadth of BP’s gulf oil spill are still unknown, but reviewing the harm and costs from the Exxon Valdez spill can give us a sense of the likely scale of the disaster. Whether the gulf spill surpasses this devastation will depend on whether and when BP can stop the flow of oil from deep on the ocean floor. …

Oil spills by the numbers: The devastating consequences of Exxon Valdez and BP gulf