On January 28, 1969, a Union Oil Company oil drilling platform 6 mi (10 km) off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, suffered a blowout, leading to a tremendous ecological disaster. Before it could be stopped, 3 million gal (11.4 million l) of crude oil gushed into the Pacific Ocean, killing thousands of birds, fish, sea lions, and other marine life. For weeks after the spill, the nightly television news programs showed footage of the effects of the giant black slick, including oil–soaked birds on the shore dead or dying.

Many people viewed the disaster as an event that gave the modern environmental movement—which began with the publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring in 1962—a new impetus in the United States. "The blowout was the spark that brought the environmental issue to the nation's attention," Arent Schuyler, an environmental studies lecturer at the University of...