Oil dispersants Alaska had fewer than 4,000 gallons of dispersants available at the time of the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill, and no aircraft with which to dispense them. The dispersants introduced were relatively ineffective due to insufficient wave action to mix the oil and water, and their use was shortly abandoned. A report by David Kirby for TakePart found that the main component of the Corexit 9527 formulation used during Exxon Valdez cleanup, 2-butoxyethanol, was identified as "one of the agents that caused liver, kidney, lung, nervous system, and blood disorders among cleanup crews in Alaska following the 1989 "Exxon Valdez" spill."
Prestige oil spill a rupture and quickly release much of the remaining oil and create another catastrophic spill. The report urged the government to take "prompt" action. Experts predicted marine life could suffer from the pollution for at least ten years due to the type of oil spill, which contained light fractions with polyaromatic hydrocarbons and could poison plankton, fish eggs and crustaceans with carcinogenic effects in fish and potentially humans as well. In the subsequent months, thousands of volunteers joined the public company TRAGSA (the firm chosen by the regional government to deal with the cleanup) to help clean the affected coastline.