Exxon Valdez Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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When the E xxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, it spilled over 11 million gallons (41.8 million liters) of crude oil, the largest single spill ever released in U.S. coastal waters. The spill occurred late in the evening of March 24, 1989. The ship left Port Valdez, Alaska, under the command of Captain Joseph Hazelwood. After leaving port, the captain left the bridge in charge of a third mate who was not licensed to operate in that particular area of Prince William Sound. The ship, having turned into the inbound shipping lanes to avoid ice from nearby glaciers, was supposed to return to the outbound lanes. For several reasons, including missing navigational markers and failing to disengage the ship’s autopilot-the ship turned too late, and, just after midnight Alaska Time, the ship struck Bligh Reef, a well-known navigation hazard.

While Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company-the firm established to build the trans-Alaska oil pipeline-sought to respond to the spill, the sheer volume of oil was simply too great to be contained. Compounding the problem was Alyeska’s failure to maintain oil spill response equipment and material in the area, despite their promises to do so. This was made clear in initial media reports and was confirmed in later investigations; almost immediately after word of the spill reached the world, the news media converged on Prince William Sound, beaming pictures of oiled beaches and wildlife to a shocked and angry public. The spill served to mobilize environmental, fishing, and allied groups in efforts to enact more stringent regulation of oil tankers, and to enhance preparation for oil spills. For many of these interests, the Exxon Valdez spill was an event that had long been dreaded, and because of the impact of the spill on wildlife and fisheries, groups that had been suspicious of each other’s motives were brought together in a common cause: anger at Exxon and a desire for some sort of compensation.

In the immediate aftermath of the spill, attempts to contain the oil were minimally successful. Exxon hired contractors who attempted to clean beaches of oil by using absorbent rags, and sometimes using superheated water, which may have done nearly as much damage as the oil itself. Even today, vestiges of the Exxon Valdez oil spill can be seen along the rocky beaches of Prince William Sound and southcentral Alaska. The actual environmental effects of the Exxon Valdez spill are not fully known. Many otters and birds were killed by oil, and the salmon fishery was largely ruined for 1989 because of fears that any catch would be tainted by oil. The salmon have since recovered, but the very important herring fishery has never returned to pre-spill levels, although it is not clear whether the decline in herring was due to the oil spill. The oil spill had obvious socioeconomic consequences. Nearly the entire commercial fishing fleet in Cordova, the main fishing port in PWS, was idled by the spill, and while some fishers were able to lease their boats to Alyeska, many felt personal or community pressure to not take money from Exxon. Estimates of the economic impact of the spill ranged from $6 million to $43 million; longer-term impacts were higher.

The public policy impact of the spill was significant. The spill directly broke a 14-year legislative deadlock and triggered the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90), which provided for increasingly stringent regulation of tankers and other oil facilities. While the Exxon Valdez spill was spectacular and a key turning point in the history of federal oil spill policy, other large oil spills, such as the Santa Barbara oil well blowout in 1969 and the grounding of the Argo Merchant off Nantucket in 1976, also gained considerable attention, but without the same policymaking results. The importance of the Exxon Valdez in American politics can be attributed to the general proposition that symbols and images are very powerful in politics. The dominant symbols of the Exxon Valdez spill were of oiled otters and birds, the soiling of the “pristine Alaskan environment,” and the image of a large, uncaring oil company, which employed a drunk tanker captain, spilled oil, and then failed to manage the cleanup. These images and stories focused on Alaska as a wild, pristine “last frontier,” and made this event particularly compelling to many people and interest groups.

A particularly important outcome of the Exxon Valdez spill is the establishment of citizens’ advisory councils under OPA 90. Two Regional Citizens’ Advisory Councils (RCACs) were established, for the Cook Inlet Region and Prince William Sound. The RCACs are funded by assessments on the oil industry, and include numerous local interest groups. They have discretionary funds for research projects and have been able to promote policy change involving tanker escort and navigation, weather reporting, and air pollution controls.

Another significant outcome was the establishment of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, established to guide the spending of the $900 million fine assessed on Exxon for the oil spill as part of an agreement between the federal and state government and by Exxon. A $5 billion civil penalty was imposed on the Exxon Valdez in 1994, but the federal district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have not yet resolved what the appellate court considers an appropriate figure; it has simply signaled to the lower court that $5 billion is too much. Civil claims continue 17 years after the spill.

Bibliography:

Alaska Oil Spill Commission, Spill: The Wreck of the Exxon Valdez. Final Report (State of Alaska, 1990);
Thomas A. Birkland and Regina G. Lawrence, “The Exxon Valdez and Alaska in the American Imagination,” in Steven Biel, , American Disasters (New York University Press, 2001);
J. Busenburg, “Innovation, Learning, and Policy Evolution in Hazardous Systems,” American Behavioral Scientist (v.44/4, 2001);
Art Davidson, In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez (Sierra Club Books, 1990);
John Keeble, Out of the Channel (Harper Collins, 1991);
Natalie Phillips, “$5,000,000,000: Jury Sets Oil Spill Damages,” Anchorage Daily News (September 17, 1994);
Jeff Wheelwright, Degrees of Disaster: Prince William Sound: How Nature Reels and Rebounds (Simon and Schuster, 1994);
A. Wiens, “Oil, Seabirds and Science,” BioScience (v.46/8, 1996).