The Nation - News from Jan. 6, 1989

The Coast Guard said that divers found “very serious cracks” in the hull of an 874-foot tanker and that 33,600 gallons of crude oil had leaked into Valdez harbor, the terminus of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The spill is the largest at the oil port since the pipeline began pumping crude oil from Prudhoe Bay, America’s largest oil field, in 1977, said Coast Guard Cmdr. Steven McCall in Valdez. Cleanup was continuing for the third day, and most of the oil was contained by booms around the ship but sheens of oil were visible on the water outside the booms.