Dan Strickland

The old maxim “put your money where your mouth is” occurred to me.

On Aug. 21, deep beneath the West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea off Australia's northwest coast, oil and gas began leaking from an as yet unidentified pipeline break. The rig was evacuated, and an oil slick began spreading into an environmentally sensitive area described as a "superhighway" for young turtles and whales. Plans were made to transport another drilling rig to help locate the leak and pump mud into it to stop the flow of oil.

March 24, 1989, is a day that will live in infamy for many Alaskans. When the Exxon Valdez fouled Prince William Sound, oil companies' promises about their ability to respond turned out to be false. Commitments to clean every last drop of spilled oil were empty platitudes.