No different particulars on the demise got, together with the date and site. Mr. Hazelwood lived on Lengthy Island in Huntington, N.Y. The maritime web site gCaptain.com first reported his demise on July 22, however gave no additional info. One other transport web site, maltashipnews.com, citing a “supply near his household,” reported Mr. Hazelwood died July 21.

Different oil spills have exceeded the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in sheer dimension — greater than 200 million gallons of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 from the broken rig BP Deep Water Horizon — however the environmental hurt alongside Alaska’s practically pristine shoreline and coves was close to complete in some locations and on full show as one of many largest ecological disasters in U.S. historical past.

The ship hit a reef lower than two miles from shore amid essential ecosystems for sea birds and marine life together with close by salmon breeding grounds. About 200 miles of shoreline had been “closely or reasonably oiled” because the spill unfold throughout 1,300 miles, in keeping with the Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a federal-state group that tracked the cleanup and aftermath.

A couple of minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the Coast Guard acquired a radio name from Mr. Hazelwood, who was not on the bridge when the ship went aground.

“Evidently we’re leaking some oil,” he stated, “and we’re going to be right here for fairly some time.” For days, oil gushed from the single-hull ship till the injury was sealed.

The toll to the animal inhabitants included as much as 250,000 useless seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals and 250 bald eagles, the trustee council estimated. Coastal communities that trusted fishing had been devastated — and many years later, have but to completely get better. Photos of rescue groups scrubbing oil-soaked birds and shoveling gooey seashore rocks grew to become rallying factors for environmentalists and others pushing for stronger controls on the oil business.

Opinion: President Biden, please save our Native village’s life-sustaining waters

The catastrophe helped form sweeping modifications the next yr to bolster the Environmental Safety Company’s oil transport laws — together with phasing out single-hulled tankers just like the Exxon Valdez — and strengthen the EPA’s skill to reply to spills in U.S. waters. The Oil Air pollution Act of 1990 took a direct swipe on the Exxon Valdez (pronounced Val-DEEZ), banning from Prince William Sound any ship that had “spilled greater than 1,000,000 gallons of oil into the marine surroundings after March 22, 1989.” That successfully blocked the vessel from Alaskan waters.

“Had a spill the extent of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe occurred off the US East Coast, the devastation would have stretched from Cape Cod to Chesapeake Bay,” wrote Walter Parker, head of the Alaska Oil Spill Fee, in 1990.

Mr. Hazelwood, in the meantime, confronted court docket battles and have become — together with his full beard and fisherman’s cap — the face of the catastrophe and the questions over potential neglect, showing in newspapers and magazines around the globe. A Time journal cowl from July 1989 had an illustration of Mr. Hazelwood with the headline: Fateful Voyage.

In March 1990, Mr. Hazelwood was acquitted of a felony cost of working a vessel whereas intoxicated. He was, nonetheless, convicted of a misdemeanor cost of negligently discharging oil, ordered to carry out 1,000 hours of neighborhood service, together with serving to clear oil-fouled seashores, and pay a $5,000 effective.

He by no means returned to obligation as a service provider seaman, however in 1992 helped practice college students at his alma mater, the State College of New York’s Maritime School within the Bronx, together with programs on standing watch on the bridge of a ship.

Mr. Hazelwood was not on the Exxon Valdez bridge when the 987-foot ship hit the reef, hours after starting a voyage certain for Lengthy Seashore, Calif., with practically 60 million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude. He had set a bypass route via Prince William Sound to keep away from drift ice from a glacier.

Mr. Hazelwood left the bridge at 11:50 p.m., turning it over to the third mate, Gregory Cousins. At 11:55 p.m., Cousins phoned Hazelwood that he was starting the flip again to the unique route after clearing the ice, in keeping with court docket testimony and information. The helmsman apparently didn’t make the flip quick sufficient to keep away from collision with the reef.

“There was no motive to do what I did that night,” Cousins testified. “I should not have allowed myself to change into inattentive.”

An investigation by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board concluded in March 1990 that the third mate had did not “correctly maneuver the vessel due to fatigue and extreme workload.” Mr. Hazelwood, the report stated, “failed to offer a correct navigation watch due to impairment from alcohol.” The Exxon Delivery Co., the NTSB added, “failed to offer a match grasp and a rested and ample crew.”

In an interview with an Alaska state trooper taped hours after the ship ran aground, Mr. Hazelwood stated he had a beer earlier than he sailed and a “phony beer” as soon as underway, a reference to a nonalcoholic model.

On the trial, jurors had been instructed that exams confirmed Mr. Hazelwood’s blood alcohol stage was beneath the Alaska authorized restrict for piloting a vessel about 10 hours after the grounding. The prosecution argued that the studying prompt he may have been legally intoxicated when the ship hit the reef.

After the 1990, Joseph Hazelwood leaves Alaska for house

In 1991, a U.S. District Court docket in Anchorage accepted acknowledgments of felony duty from Exxon Corp. and Exxon Delivery Co., together with a $100 million felony effective, as a part of a $1.1 billion settlement to settle felony and civil fees. The ship was transferred to SeaRiver Maritime Inc., an ExxonMobil subsidiary, and renamed S/R Mediterranean. It was later offered to a Hong Kong-based transport agency and scrapped in 2012.

In 2014, Mr. Hazelwood joined a CNN correspondent at a simulator to revisit the moments earlier than the 1989 grounding. He stated he altered the conventional course via Prince William Sound after stories of ice floes from the Columbia Glacier getting into the transport lanes. Mr. Hazelwood stated that he notified the Coast Guard of the brand new bearings and that it was acknowledged.

“No drawback,” he stated. “Two ships previous to me had carried out it.”

He turned over the bridge to the third mate, Cousins, with directions to return to the conventional route as soon as away from the ice. “I went all the way down to my workplace,” he instructed CNN. “I had some paperwork to fill out and I needed to have a look at the most recent climate.”

“The flip was initiated,” he added, “simply initiated late.” The ship couldn’t keep away from Bligh Reef.

He couldn’t account for what occurred in these essential minutes, nonetheless. “Don’t know,” he stated. “Unhappy to say I wasn’t there.”

Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood was born Sept. 24, 1946, in Hawkinsville, Ga., and later moved to Lengthy Island when his father, a pilot for Pan American World Airways, took up a brand new base. Mr. Hazelwood acquired a bachelor’s diploma in marine transportation in 1968 from Maritime School.

He rose via the transport ranks and was a captain within the Exxon fleet in his early 30s. After the spill, he labored as a paralegal and maritime marketing consultant for what’s now Chalos & Co., a world legislation observe, which additionally represented him in his authorized instances.

Survivors embody Mr. Hazelwood’s spouse, Suzanne; daughter Alison; a brother, Joshua, and two grandsons.

“I wish to supply an apology, a really heartfelt apology, to the folks of Alaska,” Mr. Hazelwood stated in an interview for the 2009 e book “The Spill: Private Tales From the Exxon Valdez Catastrophe.” However he remained defensive, saying he had been unfairly vilified though “the true story is on the market for anyone who needs to have a look at the details.”

Mr. Hazelwood stored alive a smoldering resentment. In a 1997 interview with Outdoors journal, he confirmed off a framed collage of newspaper and journal clippings of the protection. “Drunk at sea,” learn one headline. “Skipper’s rise and fall,” stated one other.

“What court docket do I’m going to get my popularity again?” he stated.