A history of severe ocean pollution
On April 13, the Japanese government announced that a plan to release more than one million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean had been approved. According to Tokyo, the work to release water will begin in two years.
However, this is not the only case of severe man-made ocean pollution in history. From the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 to the Japanese ship oil spill in Mauritius in 2020, man-made ocean pollution is not a new phenomenon.
On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, struck the Prince William Sound reef in Alaska and spilled about 37,000 tonnes of crude oil into the water over the next few days. It was considered one of the worst oil spills ever in terms of oceanic environment pollution, as it directly caused the death of a massive amount of fish and other marine animals and ruined the local fishing industry, which was the primary income earner for residents along the coastline. The Exxon Shipping Company spent almost $2 billion to clean up the oil spill. However, based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 2007 report, some toxic materials from the oil spill still remained in the area.
