The Exxon Valdez disaster happened 20 years ago, but the lawsuit drags on. How the oil company actually made money by battling for so long. Today's typical college sophomore hadn't even been born when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef near Valdez, Alaska, in the pre-dawn hours of March 24, 1989. Its hull pierced by jagged rock, the ship spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, killing hundreds of thousands of seabirds, destroying billions of fish eggs, crippling the salmon fishery, and virtually wiping out the sound's herring. The disaster seemed to be a clear case of negligence: the ship's captain, Joseph Hazelwood, was legally intoxicated at the time, and had surrendered the wheel to overworked subordinates as it navigated the difficult, shoal-dotted waters of the sound. continue reading source: Portfolio.com