FLASHBACK: Just As In The Valdez Spill Of 1989, The Pristine Waters Of Hormuz Are Covered In Oil

THE COPPER RIVER COUNTRY JOURNAL 

TROUBLED WATERS 

SATELLITES SHOW HEAVY OIL IN THE TROPICAL SEA STEMMING FROM U.S. WAR AGAINST IRAN 

IN ALASKA, WE LAST SAW THIS LEVEL OF POLLUTION IN 1989...

Satellite views of the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East have shown an alarming – and largely unnoticed – degree of oil contamination stemming from the U.S. war against Iran and its effect on the world's oil supply. Several tankers have been hit, and oil has escaped into the waters of the strait, into its fishing grounds and robust and healthy stands of rare, living coral. 

By the third week of April, 2026, satellite pictures showed the devastation. 

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In the Copper Valley-Valdez corridor, this level of pollution is relatively easy to grasp. We've been here before ourselves.

On March 24th, 1989, the Exxon Valdez, a supertanker full of Alaska crude oil, left Valdez. It hit Bligh Reef, in Prince William Sound, at midnight, and spilled 10 million gallons of oil into the wild and isolated ocean along Alaska's coast. 

To that point, the Sound had been, invariably, characterized as 'pristine' Prince William Sound. So the Alaskan disaster was widely known throughout an alarmed world. 

Within two days, the town of Valdez was filled with newscasters, struggling to file their stories over the few fax machines and low technology of the time. They stood in line at a local hotel, waiting their turn to file their stories to the outside world.  In those days, there was only one piece of special equipment  -– in that hotel –– that could send video and reports to the outside world. 

The eventual cleanup of the oil spill involved hiring crews to scour the blackened, sticky, oil-soaked shores of the Sound in rubber yellow suits, attempting to spray the massive amounts of oil off the rocks. For many, this opportunity to work on the spill was considered a godsend, and hopeful workers flocked to Valdez from all over Alaska and America, trying to get a job. 

In the yard of Prince William Sound Community College in Valdez, contaminated birds were washed down with dishwashing detergent at a washing station. Many species of sea animals were devastated by the spill. Birds, sea otters, whales and mussels were among the many creatures affected.

However, eventually it turned out that exposure to the oil was deadly to humans, too. Exposure out on the rocks injured the workers' lungs, nervous systems, kidney, livers and blood. 

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THE JOURNAL ARCHIVES, APRIL 1989