Exxon Valdex Exxon Valdez Oil

Exxon Valdex

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Few environmental disasters are as well-known or conjure as immediate a memory as does the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Until the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, this was the single largest oil-spill disaster in history. It remains even to this day a significant determinant of the ecological realities that define the Alaskan coast line where the Exxon tanker went aground. As the discussion hereafter will show, the disaster is marked by a series of irregularities, regulatory oversights and sheer carelessness on the part of Exxon and its crew. These factors converged to create one of the most challenging environmental response and clean-up efforts known to date. The discussion hereafter will describe these efforts as well as the corrective actions taken to redress the disaster, the agencies which participated in the reconciliation of the spill and some consideration of the regulatory violations that made such a disaster all but inevitable.

Brief Summary:

According to the text by Cleveland (2010), on March 24th, 1989, the tanker named the Exxon Valdez departed from Valdez, Alaska headed for Southern California carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil. The tanker struck the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound just off the coast of Alaska and, according to Cleveland, emptied at least 11 million gallons of oil into the ocean in the space of just six hours. Effecting roughly 1100 miles of Alaskan coastline, the event would have devastating implications for the marine life, wildlife and human communities there within. The causes of the accident itself were assessed in an initial investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which reported five likely contributing causes to the grounding. Here, Cleveland reports the findings of the NTSB, which stated that "(1) The third mate failed to properly maneuver the vessel, possibly due to fatigue and excessive workload; (2) the master failed to provide a proper navigation watch, possibly due to impairment from alcohol; (3) Exxon Shipping Company failed to supervise the master and provide a rested and sufficient crew for the Exxon Valdez; (4) the U.S. Coast Guard failed to provide an effective vessel traffic system; and (5) effective pilot and escort services were lacking." (Cleveland, p. 1)

Corrective Actions:

First and foremost among corrective actions would be the assumption of cleanup responsibilities. Here, Cleveland reports the single largest and most complex cleanup effort in environmental disaster history. Particularly, because of the remoteness of the location, the rugged terrain there and the treacherous weather, traditional cleanup methods and supply chains were hindered. Cleveland reports that at its height between April and September of 1989, the cleanup effort involved more than 11,000 personnel, 1400 vessels and 85 aircraft. (Cleveland, p. 1)

In addition to highly complex cleanup efforts, the United States government would respond with the passage of federal legislation aimed at forcing the oil industry to improve its own regulatory oversight where environmental protection is concerned. According to the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), the federal government pushed through the rapid passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which would call for stricter adherence to environmental standards as well as the imposition of new, sturdier standards where oil transport is concerned. The events would also create an impetus for the permanent presence of environmental-monitoring groups in the region, particularly with an interest in observing the ecological effects of the disaster across long periods of time. And in light of this presence, we know that in spite of the various corrective actions taken, the spill's consequences are permanent to the region's many human and wildlife inhabitants. According to the OR&R, "in the years since the Exxon Valdez spilled its cargo of crude oil on Bligh Reef, many parts of the Alaskan marine environment have begun to show signs of significant physical and biological change: waters have warmed, ice has receded, and populations of fish and mammals have declined." (OR&R, p. 1)

Agencies Involved:

Agencies which took part in the cleanup were a diverse array of government departments, emergency management personnel, environmental groups and military divisions. According to the text provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which would take a lead role in coordinating cleanup efforts, the U.S. Coast Guard would be the first to respond to the scene. The Coast Guard would soon be joined by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the Alaska Regional Response Team. Ultimately though, the cleanup endeavor would prove so massive and multifaceted as to call for a highly layered network of participants serving the diverse array of legal, practical, environmental and economic needs produced by the disaster. According to the EPA, "The Coast Guard quickly expanded its presence on the scene, and personnel from other Federal agencies also arrived to help. EPA specialists in the use of experimental bioremediation technologies assisted in the spill cleanup and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at NOAA was involved in providing weather forecasts for Prince William Sound, allowing the cleanup team to adapt their methods to changing weather conditions. Specialists from the Hubbs Marine Institute in San Diego, California, set up a facility to clean oil from otters, and the International Bird Research Center of Berkeley, California, established a center to clean and rehabilitate oiled waterfowl." (EPA, p. 1)

Violated Regulations/Standards:

One of the most troubling failures rests with Exxon itself, which operated in full knowledge of certain defective instruments on the ill-fortuned tanker and which even determined in its own findings that Captain Hazlewood's inebriation was the cause for the crash. According to Palast (2008) though, this is only one dimension of the systemic fraud committed by Exxon over two decades leading up to the spill. Palast asserts, "forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate." (Palast, p. 1)

This safety oversight was, in Palast's estimation, only a final regulatory violation following twenty years of broken promises to the fishing communities in the Prince William Sound region. Palast reports that, in fact, Exxon's initial partnership with the communities at Valdez was based on a host of promises -- eventually enacted as federal laws -- which were to protect the region from environmental abuses. In fact, Palast reports that even before the catastrophic scale of the Exxon Valdez spill, there had been myriad indications that the activities revolving around the Alaskan oil pipeline leading out to sea were already having a deleterious impact on the environment. Here, Exxon was not just violating its promises to the native communities and the resultant federal laws but was also working with concerted effort to cover up evidence of its malfeasance. According to Palast, "several smaller oil spills before the Exxon Valdez could have warned of a system breakdown. But a former Senior Lab Technician with Alyeska, Erlene Blake, told our investigators that management routinely ordered her to toss out test samples of water evidencing spilled oil. She was ordered to refill the test tubes with a bucket of clean sea water called, 'The Miracle Barrel.'" (Palast, p. 1) This denotes that Exxon had worked in advance of the oil spill to protect the continuity of its operation in spite of considerable evidence of its negative environmental consequences and its violation of existing regulatory standards.

Palast goes on to indicate also that Exxon was warned exactly ten months in advance of the disaster that its current safety equipment shortfalls would make containment of an oil-spill in the 'Valdez Narrows' impossible to contain. This would prove an accurate projection as more than 11,000 gallons of crude oil emptied into the sea and spread across tens of thousands of square miles of ocean and coastline. On this point, there also remains sufficient doubt today that the 11,000 gallons of oil estimated to have spilled into the ocean is an accurate figure. According to Bluemink (2010), some dispute of that figure remains and is based on the perception that Exxon purposefully under-represented this number. According to Bluemink, "salvage boat captain Nikki Hennessy, who responded to the spill, publicly disputed the 11 million figure in 1989, based on his observations at the scene and his belief that seawater had filled the tanks. Hennessy believed Exxon pumped large amounts of seawater into three tankers that came to remove oil from the disabled ship, and the company counted the seawater as oil." (Bluemink, p. 1)