OIL LEAKS AND spills into our environment on a daily basis. The public hears about huge oil spills—such as when tankers smash into rocks, break apart in rough seas, run aground in shallow water, or even crash into each other—but smaller spills happen constantly. Train cars derail, trucks skid and crash, jets spill oil during refueling maneuvers, some cruise ships illegally pump used oil overboard, and cars leak oil onto driveways. Drop by drop, barrel by barrel, the spills add up.

The amount of oil that spills into our environment is staggering. So much oil spills that even some enormous spills, such as the Exxon Valdez, actually comprise a small fraction of the total amount of oil spilled.

People remember the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound and the damage that 258,000 barrels of spilled oil wreaked on the environment. Although the...