On This Day in 1989: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

On this day in 1989, shortly after midnight, the tanker Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. About 11 million gallons of crude oil left the ruptured hull. The Sound is remote, the weather turned before equipment arrived, and containment never caught up. Oil eventually touched more than a thousand miles of shoreline.

The cleanup ran for years and the fisheries took longer. Congress responded with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which required double hulls on new tankers, expanded liability, and built the spill response system the country still uses. Two decades later, oil could still be found under the gravel on some beaches.

For a household the lesson is narrower and more practical. A single accident upstream can make an entire local water source unusable for a long time, and no filter in a kitchen cabinet removes dissolved petroleum reliably. That is why stored water is the first layer of water preparedness rather than the last, and why it helps to understand the impact of oil spills on water sources before one happens near you.