The worst oil spill in history occurred twenty years ago yesterday when the supertanker Exxon Valdez went aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The captain was sleeping off drink and an inexperienced third mate was at the helm when the ship struck Bligh Reef in the early morning of March 24th. The reef ripped the bottom of the single hull tanker causing the rupture of its oil tanks and the release of 11 million gallons of viscous crude oil into an unspoiled environment. The human response to the spill was initially disorganized and lackadaisical, but after a severe winter storm spread the spill farther into the sound on the third day clean up operations began and thereafter expanded exponentially. The clean up became the largest private project in Alaska since the Alaska pipeline, employing 11,000 people at one point. The clean up cost about $2 billion and lasted four summers. The spill covered 10,000 square miles of coastline, fouling two national parks, a national forest, two wildlife refuges, five state parks, four critical habitat areas and a state game sanctuary. The spill disrupted the local economy and culture that focused on fishing. The effects of the toxic, high sulfur sludge--crude mixed with seawater--on wildlife was extremely devastating. An estimated 250,000 seabirds were killed. Fourteen of the thirty six resident killer whales disappeared. One thousand sea otter carcasses were recovered. One hundred fifty-one bald eagles were confirmed dead. The Pacific herring population crashed in 1993 and is still too low to sustain a commercial fishery. The depressing list of wildlife casualties goes on.Exxon Corp., which raked in the largest corporate profit in history last year, paid a relatively small amount in compensation and fines for damages. It paid a $25 million dollar criminal fine (the federal court fined Exxon $150 million but forgave $125 million in recognition of the company's cooperation in cleaning up the spill), $100 million in criminal restitution, and paid $900 million over ten years as a civil settlement. Under a provision for injuries not apparent at the time of the 1991 civil settlement, the federal and Alaskan governments have demanded an additional $92 million for restoration projects due to lingering presence of oil on beaches. Exxon-Mobil has not responded to the demand made in June 2006. Nor has either
government made any effort to collect the money for restoration projects that would employ Alaskans. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have asked US Attorney General Eric Holder and Alaska's Acting Attorney General Richard Svobodny to act immediately to collect the overdue claim against the company. Today, the Sound is superficially back to normal. Visitors can again experience the spectacular scenery and abundant wildlife, but the toxic legacy of the Valdez remains hidden beneath the sand and in nooks and crannies of isolated beaches. The trustees of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Council report that the amount of Valdez oil remaining exceeds the total of all previous pollution on the beaches in the Sound. Oil is decreasing at a rate of only 0-4% per year with only a 5% chance of decrease at the highest rate. It will take centuries for all the oil to disappear. [photos: courtesy ENS]