Prince William Sound spill vs Dan River coal-ash spill

Two real, published enforcement settlements, lined up. Every figure below is public record; the head-to-head is computed at build time over those real numbers. Penalty bars share one log scale, so they read across the gutter.

Head to head · real figures only
  • Larger settlement Exxon (Exxon Valdez) ~$1 billion vs $102 million
  • More recent case Duke Energy 1991 vs 2015
  • Regulatory program same both under the Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act · 1991 Public record

Prince William Sound spill

Exxon (Exxon Valdez) · Alaska
~$1 billion
settlement · log scale, $16.5M to $14.7B

The settlement that reset the price of an oil spill.

After the 1989 tanker grounding fouled 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline, the 1991 settlement combined a $900 million civil recovery paid over ten years with $100 million in criminal restitution.

Source: U.S. DOJ / EPA / State of Alaska settlement, 1991

Clean Water Act · 2015 Public record

Dan River coal-ash spill

Duke Energy · North Carolina
$102 million
settlement · log scale, $16.5M to $14.7B

A pipe under a coal-ash pond let go into a drinking-water river.

Duke Energy subsidiaries pleaded guilty to nine Clean Water Act violations across North Carolina plants and paid $102 million in fines, restitution, and community service after the 2014 Dan River release.

Source: U.S. DOJ, 2015

Both cases, in numbers
Field Exxon (Exxon Valdez) Duke Energy
Program Clean Water Act Clean Water Act
Operator Exxon (Exxon Valdez) Duke Energy
Location Alaska North Carolina
Year 1991 2015
Settlement / penalty ~$1 billion $102 million
Source U.S. DOJ / EPA / State of Alaska settlement, 1991 U.S. DOJ, 2015

⇆ Swap sides · All cases & states

These are landmark settlements, not live ECHO facility records. Day-to-day compliance metrics - quarters in noncompliance, formal-action counts, last inspection - are not part of a settlement figure; they join per facility from the ECHO Exporter (loadFacilities() in src/lib/source.ts). See the Methodology for what is real versus illustrative on this site.