Walter B. Parker Act, which was signed into law in 1980 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling an estimated 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster for the state. Governor Steve Cowper, who held office at the time of the spill, appointed Walter Parker as the chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission in 1989. The Alaska Oil Spill Commission was created by the Alaska state government to investigate the causes of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Odyssey (tanker) Odyssey (tanker) Odyssey, which previously went by the name "Oriental Phoenix", was an oil tanker in operation from 1971 to November 10, 1988, when an explosion caused it to sink in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. The resulting spill remains one of the largest oil spills in world history. The tanker was off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when it sank and released 132,157 tons (43 million gallons) of oil into the ocean. By way of comparison, 4.3 times as much oil was spilled by the "Odyssey" as from the much more famous