Hello again! Im Jim Tedder in Washington with the program that helps you to learn and improve your American English. Today we look back 25 years to a disaster that affected the environment and the economy in our northernmost state.
Then ...some politics. Some experts say this election year is looking good for the Republican party. We will examine the situation in detail.
Its nice to have you with us as we learn about our world ...As It Is.
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Exxon Valdez was a huge tanker, a ship built to carry large amounts of oil. On March 24, 1989, the tanker set sail from the port of Valdez in the state of Alaska. Then the Exxon Valdez struck rocks in Prince William Sound. Forty-one-point-five million liters of oil leaked into the water.
The Exxon Valdez produced the greatest environmental disaster from an oil spill in US history. The spill marked a turning point in the prevention and reaction to such accidents.
For weeks, oil leaking from the Exxon Valdez spread along the coastline of Alaska. Debbie Payton works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The federal agency, known as NOAA, is responsible for taking steps when disasters strike. Ms. Payton remembers visiting communities affected by the oil spill.
There were oiled birds. There were some marine mammals that could be seen surfacing through the oil. There was oil on the beaches. ?Hundreds of thousands of sea animals died. Debbie Payton and other NOAA workers did what they could to keep the oil from spreading. They used special equipment to trap and recover the oil in Prince William Sound. They burned oil and covered rocks on land with chemical dispersants.
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