Prestige oil spill causing great harm to the local fishing industry. The spill is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal. The amount of oil spilled was more than the "Exxon Valdez" incident and the toxicity considered higher, because of the higher water temperatures. In 2007 the Southern District of New York dismissed a 2003 lawsuit by the Kingdom of Spain against the American Bureau of Shipping, the international classification society which had certified the "Prestige" as in compliance with rules and laws, because ABS was a "person" per the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution
1969 Santa Barbara oil spill which devastated coastal areas in both England and France, and the burning of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. At the time, the Santa Barbara spill was the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters, and its occurrence during a fierce battle between local residents and the very oil company responsible for the spill only made the controversy more intense, the battle more public, and the anti-oil cause seem more valid to a wider segment of the populace. In the several years after the spill, more environmental legislation was passed than in any other similar period in U.S. history.