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Eighteen years after captain Joseph Hazelwood radioed that the oil tanker Exxon Valdez had "fetched up hard aground" on Alaska's Bligh Reef, the battle over environmental damage and financial liability may be nearing conclusion after years of legal wrangling.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a $2.5 billion punitive-damages judgment against ExxonMobil (XOM, news, msgs), which means the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to settle the case.
Not all animal species have fully recovered from what was the largest oil spill in U.S. history, and more than 30,000 people affected by the spill are still waiting for what they call adequate compensation.
About 11 million gallons of crude were dumped into Prince William Sound that day in March 1989. Winds, tides and currents spread much of it over 10,000 square miles and 1,200 miles of rocky beach. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds, fish and other animals were killed. Tens of thousands of fishermen, cannery workers, native Alaskans and others were affected.
Though it's been more than 18 years since the spill, a federal study this year concluded that oil has persisted below the surface of exposed shores and that the remaining oil is declining by only about 4% a year. Particularly persistent is the thick, emulsified goo known as "oil mousse."
"Our results indicate that the remaining subsurface oil may persist for decades with little change," researchers from the National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies concluded in a report published in February. "Such persistence can pose a contact hazard to inter-tidally foraging sea otters, sea ducks and shorebirds, create a chronic source of low-level contamination, discourage subsistence in a region where use is heavy and degrade the wilderness character of protected lands."
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'Healthy, robust and thriving'
Last year, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which oversees ecosystem recovery in Prince William Sound, painted a mixed picture.Some species, including bald eagles, harbor seals and river otters, have recovered to pre-spill levels. But others -- killer whales, sea otters, mussels and clams among them -- have not fully recovered. Pacific herring, which are commercially valuable as well as being a source of food to marine mammals, birds, invertebrates and other fish, appear not to be recovering, and at one point the fishery had collapsed with only 25% of the expected adults returning to spawn, according to the trustee council.
ExxonMobil disputes claims by biologists, fishermen and others that the damaging effects continue, including drop-offs in herring and some salmon runs. On its Web site, ExxonMobil asserts that "hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies conducted by researchers from major independent scientific laboratories and academic institutions" have proved that "the environment in Prince William Sound is healthy, robust and thriving."
The Texas oil giant points out that it already has spent about $3 billion on environmental cleanup, government settlements, fines and compensation.
But on May 23, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the $2.5 billion punitive-damages judgment against ExxonMobil, which originally had been set at $5 billion by a federal jury in 1994.
Among the plaintiffs in the case are about 33,000 fishermen, cannery workers, business owners, native Alaskans and others.
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In its ruling last month -- its third in the case since 1994 -- the appeals court declared, "It is time for this protracted litigation to end." Plaintiffs agree, noting that at least 6,000 of those who originally claimed to have been harmed by the massive oil spill have since died.
Putting up a 'ridicule pole'
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil reported the largest-ever annual profit by a U.S. company: $39.5 billion. At their recent annual meeting in Dallas, company executives faced a vocal minority of shareholders demanding that ExxonMobil set goals for reducing greenhouse gases and committing to invest more in renewable-energy sources.So far, ExxonMobil has declined to join BP PLC (BP, news, msgs), ConocoPhillips (COP, news, msgs) and Shell (RDS.A, news, msgs) as part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of corporations and environmental groups pushing for binding legal limits on greenhouse gases.
After the 1989 spill, the Exxon Valdez was banished from Prince William Sound, renamed the SeaRiver Mediterranean and sent to other parts of the world. In 1990, Congress passed a law banning single-hulled tankers like the Valdez from domestic waters by 2015.
Meanwhile, in Cordova, Alaska -- the fishing village most devastated by the oil spill -- villagers recently erected a "ridicule pole." It's a traditional native yellow cedar totem pole mocking a company official's promise shortly after the Exxon Valdez ran aground: "We will do whatever it takes to keep you whole."
This article was reported and written by Brad Knickerbocker for The Christian Science Monitor.
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