The Valdez Oil Spill
By
Donna Jean Queiros Barone
For
Occupational Safety
Barry McCaskill
The story you are about to read was written in 1995 while I was in college. Since then I decided to put this on the Net. I know many articles have been written on the subject but, I wish to put a version from a safety stand point. May you take this to heart and see that we are responsible for taking care of the Earth.
Marine life, animals, plants, and human life they make up the beauty of the Earth. Seals and otters diving deep into the ocean to retrieve food from the sea. Bears standing at the foot of streams flowing into the sound, ready to pounce on a tasty salmon. Birds flying over head drop down into the water to retrieve a fish. Native Alaskans on the shore and in boats fishing for the family food. A beautiful serene scene of life in all its glory; and all of it about to be destroyed by the carelessness of a company and one man. Occupational safety at its worst, the Exxon's policies of employment, safety protection, clean-up efforts, and legal battle cost Exxon a fortune.
First let us look at the polices of employment. Evidently they didn't have strict polices. Joseph Hazelwood who was convicted in 1985 of driving while drunken in a period of five years his license was revoked three times, yet had a license to command a ship. The captain laid down his navigation of the ship, due to too much alcohol, that night and allowed an unqualified third mate to take control of the ship. Hazelwood came back and gave contradictory orders to Cousins and the lost of radar contact with the Coast Guard ; it led to disaster. Next the vessel hit a reef causing 11 million gallons of crude oil to gush from the ships bowels into the Prince William Sound. This was the worst oil spill in the history of spills, to date, occurring a little after midnight on March 24, 1989. "Why didn't they have stricter rules about drug testing and why did they allow a known drunk to be in charge of an oil tanker?" A democrat from Connecticut said "The Exxon Valdez oil spill illustrates in a divesting way how delicate the environment of Alaska can be and how impotent we are to protect it from our own mistakes." #1. Next let us look at safety protection.
Safety protection was handled very carelessly. Be for the spill Alyeska was ask how would they take care of a large spill such as 200, 000-bbl: he replied, "It is highly unlikely that a spill of this magnitude would occur.". (Give me a break here they should always prepare for the worst, this is called complacency with a capital "C".) Catastrophic events of this nature are further reduced because of tankers calling on the Port of Valdez are of American registry and all of these piloted by licensed masters or pilots. #2 (Or a Known Drunk) The states is also to blame for failing to make sure Alyeska was up to pare; due to denial of funds, budget cuts for oil terminal inspection; in turn making the oil company unprepared. The EPA administrator consulted with Bush and advised there wasn't any need for the Government to step in. "That seemed to be a polite way of saying there was no way for the feds to speed things up Washington might as well stay out and avoid sharing the blame for what the President called a major tragedy. Looks like no one wants to take responsibility for the spill. Another issue to address is the clean-up efforts.
The clean-up efforts by the federal law, the Exxon Corp. had to pay $14 million in the cost of the clean-up. The EPA, special environmentalist and marine law were involved with this issue. A week later after the accident is when they finally got into full swing at cleaning up the mess. Seems like an awful long time for such a big disaster. The problems that arose was when they cleaned the beaches with hot water that also killed the brown alga, not enough of the beach was cleaned off so, the EPA came in with oil eating microbes that helped out a lot. They used a fertilizer with phosphorus and nitrogen to produce the bacteria. But even with all the efforts still there will remain a lasting environmental effect on Alaska for many years to come. The last issue to bring to light is the legal battles Exxon had to face.
Was it all worth the legal costs for the ecological disaster to Alaska? No amount of money can ever really compensate for what happen. Its like putting a band aid on a deep cut open wound to the Native Alaskans, killing animals, destroying marine life, which is the livelihood. The spill and court battles caused congress to be concerned in environmental issues and energy needs, to come into better balance between the two. This led us into an Oil Pollution Act requiring safer tankers and developed a team through the Coast Guard to enable them to respond to an emergency quicker. The punitive damages awarded to fishermen was $5 billion. "Analysts said the company could pay the $5 billion awarded without suffering significant harm: plaintiff's had asked $15 billion. In one year their net earnings were $5.28 billion in 93."#5 This is just a slap on the wrist. Go your way and don't do it again type of attitude to the world.
In conclusion, Exxon needs to tighten up on their policies of who they put in employment and make stricture rules for those who pilot a tanker. Another thing they need do is make better preparations in case another disaster should happen. Hoping the legal battles will cause them to take a look at their policies. But knowing big firms not much will change.
Resources
Church, George J. "The Big Spill" Time 10 April 1989:39-41 #1, #2, #3
_________. "Valdez Spill Leaves Lasting Oil Impacts" Science News 13, Feb. 1993: Vol. 143:260 #4
Raloff, Janet. "Native Alaskans Eschew This Oily Diet" Science News 117, April 1993: Vol. 143:110
_________. "An Alaskan Feast for Oil-eating Microbes" Science News 13, Feb. 1993: Vol. 143:2253
Schneider, Keith. 1994, September 17 Exxon is Ordered to Pay $5 Billion for Alaska Spill New York Times pg. 1; 10 #5
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