Exxon Valdez oil spill 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. Mechanical cleanup was started shortly afterwards using booms and skimmers, but the skimmers were not readily available during the first 24 hours following the spill, and thick oil and kelp tended to clog the equipment. Despite civilian insistence for a complete clean, only 10% of total oil was actually completely cleaned. Exxon was widely criticized for its slow response to cleaning up the disaster and John Devens, the mayor of
History of the oil tanker ships with oil instead of coal, mass-production of automobiles and increasing aviation, all increased demand for oil and thus oil transport. In 1928 the World's largest oil tanker was the , completed that year for Canadian owners by Bremer Vulkan in Germany. With the right connections at the Shipping Board, ships could be bought cheaply, which caused a lot of fraud. This system was too complicated for the oil companies however, so when World War II started, independents owned 39 percent of the world tanker fleet. This was especially because oil companies needed capital to invest in the growing oil