4 Dirty Secrets of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

4 Dirty Secrets of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Two decades after the worst (to date) oil spill in the U.S., Exxon has escaped many costly payments. The fish, birds and the people who rely on natural resources are still suffering.

With the BP Gulf oil spill posing a potentially unprecedented risk to the Gulf Coast, it's useful to look back at the greatest spill in U.S. history, to see how well that cleanup went. It's been 21 years since the Exxon Valdez produced the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The dirty little secret (or, one of them) about the spill is that it was never cleaned up -- not completely.

Here are four little recognized facts about the Exxon Valdez oil spill:

1. The Oil Spill Was Never "Cleaned Up"
More than 21,000 gallons of crude oil remain, according to a 2007 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report. Just scratch the surface of many beaches, and the thick crude oil is evident beneath. True, that's less than 1% of the original 11-million-gallon spill -- but it's enough that the pollution remains toxic to wildlife, even hundreds of miles away from the site of the disaster.

Waterbirds, like Kittlitz's Murrelet, have suffered the most, and are most likely to continue to suffer, according to the American Bird Conservancy. Kittlitz's Murrelet, the population of which has declined 99% since 1972, saw its rate of decline nearly double since the oil spill.

SNIP...

3. Local Residents and Fishermen Have Not Been Compensated
True, roughly $2 billion has been spent on the cleanup effort and Exxon has paid approximately $1 billion in damages. But Exxon hasn't delivered on $92 million claimed by federal and state governments for damages to wildlife, fishermen and others. And in 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a punitive damages case that would have paid out $2.5 billion to fishermen and others whose livelihoods and lives were irrevocably damaged by the spill. The award was reduced by about 20% on a 5-3 vote that came after the recusal of Justice Samuel Alito, a Bush appointee who owns an estimated $100,000-$250,000 in Exxon stock. Worse, many of the victims seeking compensation have died since filing claims after the spill. As a corporation, Exxon can run out the clock against individuals with shorter life spans, and continue to rake in massive profits while it does; in 2008, Exxon recorded a record $45.2 billion profit.

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SOURCE w Links: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/exxon-valdez-20-years-47032401?src=rss

Special report: Will the cleanup make the BP oil spill worse?

(Reuters) - More than half an inch of oil covered the sea when Dennis Kelso's boat, piled with a few newly dead birds, nudged up against the side of the Exxon Valdez on Friday, March 24, 1989.

A rope ladder hung down the side of one of the biggest vessels on earth, which had run aground near midnight on a reef in pristine Prince William Sound, a haven for birds, whales and otters, brimming with fish that supplied a multimillion dollar industry.

It is also next to the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and the Exxon Valdez had picked up millions of gallons of crude piped from the top of the frosty state to bring to gas-thirsty consumers in Long Beach, California.

Spring was breaking, migrations were starting -- and Kelso was gagging at the rush of chemicals from the liberated oil.

"At the beginning oil was literally boiling out of the tanker," said Kelso, the head of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation at the time. The crude began changing as it hit the water, releasing benzene and other pungent chemicals into the air, the start of a months-long process of transforming from a light liquid to a tarry gunk that would cling to more than a thousand miles of beaches in southern Alaska.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6465O320100507?type=domesticNews