What are some of the biggest oil spills in Washington?
It took a series of major oil spills in Washington and Alaska in the late 1980s and early 1990s before Washington’s spill prevention and response program was finally put into place by the Legislature. Major spills over the last decades include: • The 1985 ARCO Anchorage tanker spill in which 239,000 gallons of crude oil was released in Port Angeles. • The 1988 Nestucca barge spill which released 231,000 gallons of fuel oil into waters along the coast of Grays Harbor.; • The 1991 Texaco refinery spill at Anacortes which released 130,000 gallons of crude oil, of which 40,000 gallons went into Fidalgo Bay. • The 1991 spill at the U.S. Oil refinery in Tacoma which involved 600,000 gallons of crude oil, most of which was stopped from entering state waters. • The 1999 spill from Olympic Pipeline in Bellingham which involved 279,000 gallons of gasoline. Most responders would agree that the biggest spill around the world so far was the Arabian (Persian) Gulf spill in 1991. In many areas of the
