Learning from the Legacy of Past Oil Spills: Lessons from Alaska and the Gulf Coast

The Gulf of Alaska and the Southern Gulf Coast have been the sites of the two worst oil spills in U.S. history, Exxon Valdez (1989) and Deepwater Horizon (2010), respectively. These spills had devastating impacts – many that persist to this day -- on the environment, human health, the local economy, the seafood industry, and local communities’ way of life. As time passes, there is a critical need to preserve hard won lessons from these spills for both regions as well as other regions that might experience oil spills in the future.

Join the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for a wide-ranging discussion with participants of the Gulf-Alaska Knowledge Exchange, a three-workshop series that brought together community members and key stakeholders from Alaska and the Gulf Coast to foster information sharing on topics including the human health effects of oil spills, ecological restoration from oil, post-disaster socioeconomic recovery, community resilience, and the importance of effective community engagement.

Speakers:

• Edwin (Ed) Levine, Manager, SS&C, LLC
• Davin Holen, Coastal Community Resilience Specialist, Alaska Sea Grant
• Mây Thị Nguyễn, Program Officer, Kataly Foundation
• Frances (Fran) Ulmer, Associate, Arctic Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
• Collin P. Ward, Associate Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution