12/19 Peninsula Daily News -By Tom Callis -Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Twenty-five years ago Tuesday, environmental tragedy struck the North Olympic Peninsula.
The Arco Anchorage, carrying 814,000 barrels of Alaskan crude oil, ran aground the afternoon of Dec. 21, 1985, as it entered Port Angeles Harbor.
Oil began leaking almost immediately through two long gashes in the single-hull ship and spread throughout the harbor in an almost-clockwise direction — coating beaches, logs and wildlife in the process — before eventually spreading to Dungeness Spit and Neah Bay.
The crew was able to stop the leak four hours later by transferring oil to another tank inside the ship, which hit rocks 800 yards north of the Rayonier pulp mill.
But the damage had already been done.
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