Whats the Story on Oil Spills?
Quite a lot: • The United States uses about 700 million gallons of oil every day. • The world uses nearly 3 billion gallons each day. • The largest spill in the United States so far was the Exxon Valdez spill into Prince William Sound, Alaska in March 1989. An oil tanker ran aground to cause this spill of almost 11 million gallons of crude oil. While this was a big spill, it was actually only a small fraction–less than 2 percent–of what the United States uses in 1 day! These big numbers are hard to relate to everyday life, so let’s make some comparisons. To better understand how much 11 million gallons of oil is, check the table below. It shows how many familiar rooms or buildings would be filled up by the approximate amount of oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez. For example, that oil would have filled up 9 school gyms or 430 classrooms.
