A 4th Spill in Alaska In One Month

It was just a couple of weeks ago that the Obama Administration announced that it will allow new drilling for fossil fuels in the Chukchi Sea along Alaskan shores. The fact that this announcement came right after two oil spills in Alaska from pipelines related to offshore drilling in Prudhoe Bay didn’t seem to worry either the Obama White House or Big Oil. They said it was just an unlucky week.

Then, another oil pipeline burst, spewing its content all over tundra that would have been used by migrating caribou and birds from across North America. In the cleanup of the new spill, people had to treat snow as toxic waste.

Now, an oil industry tug boat has run aground on Bligh Reef, the same place where the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground and spilled its contents. Prince William Sound still hasn’t recovered from that spill, and now there’s a new fossil fuel slick floating on the waters there. The tug boat was carrying about 33,000 gallons of diesel, but it isn’t known how much of that diesel remains in the boat’s tanks after the crash created a 4 to 5 foot gash.

Oil company public relations officials have been busy coming out with explanations about how there’s no reason to worry about expanding oil drilling in Alaska, even in ecologically sensitive waters and wildlife refuges. They say that oil spills are rare, and that there’s no way that the Exxon Valdez spill could happen again.

Here we are, though, with four spills, just in Alaska, in just one month, and one of them is from a boat that’s supposed to prevent oil tankers from running aground. This comes in the same year that it took the oil industry 74 days to stop an oil rig from spilling oil. Given this rash of spills, Big Oil’s excuses just aren’t credible.