File on 4 - Oil Spill Hangover

As BP's oil spill threatens fishing towns and tourist beaches along America's Gulf coast, Gerry Northam asks if lessons from previous disasters could have prevented the tragedy. When the tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, the resulting oil spill became the worst in American history. Fisheries were closed and the local economy was undermined. Many said such a disaster should never again befall American coastal communities. Tankers were obliged to be constructed with a protective second skin, and the law was changed to give polluters the clear responsibility to pay for oil spills. More than a hundred million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf and a growing chorus of critics is asking why more preparations were not made for such a tragedy? Gerry Northam reports. Producer Andy Denwood Editor David Ross.