SHORT TAKES : Cousteau Previews Valdez Film

Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of pioneer ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, previewed his new film on the Alaska oil spill Wednesday night and called for industry to advance beyond the “Stone Age of cleanup technology.”

The 40-minute film, titled “Outrage at Valdez” and narrated by the younger Cousteau, is scheduled to be broadcast March 25, the day after the first anniversary of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil was dumped into Alaska’s Prince William Sound when the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef late on the night of March 24, 1989, off the port of Valdez.

The documentary chronicles the aftermath of the spill in terms of its destructive effect on the environment, wildlife and people of Prince William Sound, which Cousteau describes at the outset of the film as “once untouched, untainted purity of air, ice and water.”