Twenty years ago today, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in Alaska's Prince Williams Sound. Two decades on, despite reporting profits of $45.2 billion in 2008, the oil company responsible, Exxon Mobil, is only just beginning to make good on the court-mandated (and vastly reduced) $507.5 million settlement due to the Natives and local fisherman whose lives were devastated by the resulting oil spill.

Fearing the effects such an incident might cause, the fishermen and local communities fought for years to prevent the construction of the oil pipeline that feeds the hungry tankers at the Port of Valdez. Experts had deemed the enclosed geography of the Prince William Sound, in which the port lies, particularly unforgiving should a spill occur, and the courts were responsive to their arguments, issuing an injunction to stop the pipeline in its tracks. When the Supreme Court declined to hear Big Oil's appeal, pressure was put on the government who then rewrote the law, amending the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 and the National Environmental Policy Act to favor the interests of the oil companies.

The pipeline was built and environmental baseline studies the EPA would have otherwise insisted on were never carried out. This meant after the spill it was easy for Exxon to fudge the data on its effect on the delicate Prince Williams Sound eco-system. Meanwhile, with an eye on the nickels and dimes, Exxon systematically avoided and ignored the safety regulations and precautions that were in play. When the "accident" occurred, the tanker was sailing out of the Port of Valdez in a channel intended exclusively for inbound traffic. The substitute-skipper at the helm of the vessel, which was carrying an estimated 53 million US gallons of oil when it ran aground, might have avoided obstacle (a well-charted reef) had its sonar been in operation. But, as investigative journalist and Exxon expert Greg Palast reported in yesterday's SG Newswire column, "the Exxon Valdez' Raycas radar system was turned off; turned off because it was busted and had been busted since its maiden voyage. Exxon didn't want to spend the cash to fix it. So the man at the helm, electronically blindfolded, drove it up onto the reef."

In this excerpt from Buzzflash's four part series on the Exxon Valdez disaster and its ongoing fallout, Meg White uncovers the ongoing human cost in the face of Exxon's record profits.



The captain of the Exxon Valdez, a man described in later court documents as a "relapsed alcoholic," was in his quarters when he should have been piloting the ship, and the men he assigned to take his place weren't properly rested. The ship obtained special permission to exit the Prince William Sound through the inbound shipping lane. The ship came too close to shore and was grounded on the Bligh Reef, a well-known obstacle in the area, just after midnight on March 24, 1989.

Immediately after the spill, delays and mishaps interfered with the clean-up. The fishermen and the townspeople of Cordova, Alaska, who relied on the waters for their very existence, were worried. But the president of Exxon assured them they would all be taken care of. Exxon President Dan Cornett even called the incident a blessing in disguise for Alaskans while addressing a crowd of Cordovans gathered in concern after the disaster:

The opposite turned out to be the case. For the past two decades, Exxon has dragged its corporate feet in court while Alaskans have struggled to cope with the after effects of the spill. Communities such as Cordova still report cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome, along with continuing increases in divorce, bankruptcy, and suicide rates.

Cordova, AK, a small fishing town on the coast of Prince Williams Sound was devastated by the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in March 1989. While environmental and social fallout persists, Cordova has not been able to get back on its financial feet, despite promises from Exxon to make the community whole again.

Cordova, with a population of just less than 2,500 according to the most recent census data available, was one of the most hard hit when 11 million gallons of oil spread along the Alaskan coast. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Life has been especially tough on the fishermen of Cordova.

John Platt is a third-generation Alaska fisherman. He's incensed by the way Exxon and the government have treated him. "We fought tooth and nail not to have the pipeline in there," Platt said. "And here we are, 38 years later and what we feared would happen happened and nobody seems to give a damn."

Though appellate courts have consistently reaffirmed the need for compensation for damages in the case, Supreme Court rulings whittled down the legally permissible amount of the award.

The original amount of punitive damages to be paid to the fishermen was $5 billion. That amount was reduced to 4 billion, raised back up to $4.5 billion, then cut to $2.5 billion, then further reduced to $507 million. A Supreme Court ruling is expected soon on whether Exxon should pay interest on this payment after 20 years of waiting.

In a recent interview with In These Times, Cordova fisherwoman and marine biologist Riki Ott addressed the injustice of the Exxon settlement being whittled down:

Meanwhile, the fishermen of Cordova are worried about what that ultimate payment might mean. Of the original 32,000 plaintiffs against Exxon, 8,000 have liens on their settlements, meaning most if not all of the money Exxon owes them will go straight to the government. But the kicker is this: They'll still have to pay thousands in taxes on the supposed "windfall."

Commercial fishing in Alaska requires a great deal of initial investment. Not only will boats and equipment set you back tens of thousands of dollars, but also the fishing permits are expensive as well. The value of the permits depends upon the productive output of the Sound, so when fish levels crash, so do the value of the permits.

Platt took out a loan for $235,000 to get his permits, using the value of one paid-off permit and the other two purchased on credit to secure the loan. But when the value of his permits for fishing both herring and salmon plummeted after the oil spill, the Alaska Division of Investment found him to be "under-collateralized."

On top of that, there weren't any fish to catch, so his income has fallen precipitously. He said there are days where "had I left the boat tied up, I would have been better off." His salmon permit does pay off some years, but the herring catch is another story.

"We haven't had a herring season in 15 of the last 17 years," Platt said. Salmon has been a more stable population, but prices have crashed. In 1988, Platt said he was paid around $1 a pound for salmon, but the ten-year average between 1992 and 2002 was 11 cents a pound.

With such a volatile income stream, paying off his debt has been difficult for Platt. Even though he's paid about $130,000 on the loan, the amount he owes has roughly doubled from that original $235,000. The money he expects to get from Exxon won't even pay off his debt in full, and he'll have to pay taxes on the damages as well.

Platt hired a bankruptcy lawyer to create a payment plan with the state. He had to sell his salmon seine boat "for pennies on the dollar" and give all the proceeds to the state.

Platt paid off both his fishing boats thanks to money he was paid to help clean up after the spill. Paying off those debts seemed like a prudent move at the time, but Platt thinks of other ways he could have used the money to his advantage.

"If I just would've invested it all in Exxon stock, I would've been fine," Platt laughed.

Alaska House Bill 96, sponsored by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Haines), would forgive the interest owed on loans that are secured by liens on money from Exxon Valdez damages claims. Platt tried to be upbeat about the bill's prospects, but this is looking like another disappointment. He was told by a state legislative aide that the bill is good as dead due to legal issues such as equal protection.

Exxon's bid to get out of paying interest on the $507 million might have more of a chance than the fishermen's. Not that Exxon is in financial dire straits. At the end of January 2009, Exxon reported that it once again broke its own astonishing profit records. Last year, the company earned profits of $40.61 billion, topping its 2006 record. The $507 million they are estimated to be required to pay out in damages is a little more than 1 percent of the company's profit last year.

While Exxon's profits don't seem to be much endangered, there are signs that fishing the Prince Williams Sound will continue to be difficult. While salmon has fluctuated in the past 20 years, the herring season has been canceled by the state almost every year since the spill, due to unsustainable population numbers. Not only have their numbers been down, but also the herring that do show up to spawn arrive covered in lesions, bleeding internally and swimming erratically.

Scientists hesitate to equate the disease, called viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), directly with the Exxon Valdez disaster, but for Platt, it was "definitely a smoking gun." Showing up for the first time in Alaskan herring populations after the oil spill, VHSV persists today, and is one of the reasons the state has said it will once again cancel the entire herring season in 2009.

Still, thanks to a "halfway decent season" using his remaining salmon boat, Platt said he was able to help his two boys out a little this year. But still, he describes the situation as precarious. He's already sold his house and he's trying to avoid bankruptcy. It's a story you hear all the time in this tough financial environment, but Platt and the rest of Cordova have been living like this for 20 years, with no end in sight.

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A major contributor to the record-breaking nature of the disaster was the shoddy job Exxon did in removing the oil in the first place. There were significant initial delays and confusion over what methods should be used in the clean up.

The problem was attitudinal as well. Exxon perceived that it had a huge public relations disaster on its hands, not an ecological one. Instead of listening to experts on oil pollution clean up methods, Exxon sent workers to beaches to blast the area with 140-degree water. The water merely pushed the oil out of sight, while effectively boiling the plant and animal life that is thought to aid clean up.

The now-defunct U.S. Office of Technology Assessment estimated that initial clean up efforts had only removed three to four percent of the oil spilled. The huge deposits of oil remaining underground have been described by one government scientist as "land mines that will cause chronic harm to successive generations" of fauna in Alaska.

Exxon has produced several studies claiming there are no environmental effects from the spill, which have been denounced by scientists of virtually every stripe.

The tamping down of information began immediately after the spill on March 24, 1989. Fishermen such as John Platt were paid by Exxon to help in the clean up efforts, but before they were hired they had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

"I could not say or do anything that would be detrimental to Exxon," Platt recalled. "In other words, it was hush money."

Platt said he didn't talk to anyone at the time about the clean up process, for fear of losing the only job he could be sure of in that moment. He said he knew one man who did lose his temporary clean up job because he talked to the press.

The story of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was a complex and unprecedented one, and reporters who flocked to Alaska to cover the story for far away national outlets were easily confused. Riki Ott, an Alaskan marine biologist and fisherwoman, was called in at the scene and saw firsthand how Exxon whitewashed the story for the media and the American public. She documents in her 2008 book, Not One Drop, the lies Exxon told about everything from the amount of oil spilled to the success of clean up efforts.

But the lies didn't stop in 1989. Exxon continually brought its own scientists to conduct studies on Prince William Sound, with their most recent, undated "report" appearing to be from 2005. The company's scientists repeatedly reported no long-term damage, despite the fact that everyone else -- from government to private to nonprofit experts -- disagreed with their assertions.

The company caused untold death and destruction, and denied responsibility at every turn. Even their failed clean up efforts ended in misery. Clean up workers are still sick from the dangerous chemicals Exxon used to burnish its image (the efforts failed to actually restore Prince William Sound, but succeeded in forcing the oil and toxic materials underground, where the public couldn't see it). Some workers are suffering from respiratory and neurological disorders to this day. Others have died from restoration-related illnesses.

Still, the story never seems to stick. Exxon is still the world's largest publicly-traded international oil company and continues to make record profits year after year. Platt calls Exxon "the Teflon corporation," and is frustrated by the amount of influence the company exudes.

"It's a sad, sad comment" on society, Platt said. "[Exxon is] basically setting policy, molding our judicial system -- I don't know. It's almost gotten to the point -- it makes me scratch my head -- they as a corporation have more rights than that of the individual."

Exxon found that the disinformation campaign worked so well in the Prince William Sound that there was no reason not to launch others. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a study in 2007 that found Exxon had spent almost $16 million over a seven-year period funding pseudo-scientific groups to disseminate false information challenging the existence and cause of global warming.

"When one looks closely, Exxon Mobil's underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an investigative journalist who wrote the report. "The paper trail shows that, to serve its corporate interests, Exxon Mobil has built a vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading disinformation about global warming."

Exxon's funding of "trinket tanks" and pseudo scientists goes full-circle when the information they generate is used by politicians to defend policies that favor oil companies. Ever wonder where Sarah Palin got that junk science about polar bears? You guessed it: Exxon. And what is a major barrier to expanding Arctic oil exploration? Endangered species such as the polar bear.

An important point for lawmakers to realize here is the strong possibility of guilt by association. As Dune Lankard, a fisherman, Alaska Native and conservationist from Prince William Sound put it after the Exxon settlement was further reduced last year: "From here on out we will never ever trust the oil industry, government or the courts."


Thanks to Buzzflash's editor Mark Karlin and senior journalist Meg White for allowing us to reprint this article. The full text can be found on the links below:

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.