Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker that ran aground more than three decades ago in Alaska, causing one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history, has died, the New York Times reported. He was 75.
File: The former skipper of the Exxon Valdez Joseph Hazelwood listens to testimony recently during his trial, February 21, 1990. Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker that ran aground more than three decades ago in Alaska, causing one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history, has died, theHe died in July after struggling with COVID-19 and cancer, his nephew Sam Hazelwood told the newspaper for a story reported Friday.
The grounding, along with other oil spills in 1989 and 1990, prompted passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which strengthened how the U.S. government responds to oil spills. Exxon Valdez was surpassed as the nation's worst oil spill when Deepwater Horizon exploded in 2010, releasing 168 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
His blood-alcohol reading was .061, but he wasn’t tested until about 10½ hours after the tanker grounded. In most states, the legal limit is .08 percent. He then noted that he was convicted of a low-level misdemeanor. "There’s no lower crime in the state of Alaska. The judge had to come up with a sentence. I can understand it. I don’t have to agree with it," Hazelwood told theHazelwood took responsibility in the book, "The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster," by Sharon Bushell and Stan Jones.
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