Hard Aground

On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. It spilled 11 million gallons of oil, the largest spill ever in the U.S. To millions of Americans, Exxon’s cleanup attempts seemed bungled, and its actions before the spill seemed reckless. The event became one of the most infamous chapters in American environmental history. This retrospective report includes archive tape of Captain Joseph Hazelwood’s original radio call to the Coast Guard to report his ship was “hard aground.”