Exxon Valdez Anniversary: 20 Years Later, Oil Remains

Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News 23 Mar 09;

Two decades after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, huge quantities of oil still coat Alaska's shores with a toxic glaze, experts say.

More than 21,000 gallons of crude oil remain of the 11 million gallons of crude oil that bled from the stranded tanker Exxon Valdez on the night of March 23, 1989.

The oil—which has been detected as far as 450 miles (724 kilometers) away from the spill site in Prince William Sound—continues to harm wildlife and the livelihoods of local people, according to conservation groups.

Dennis Takahashi-Kelso, who was on the ground at the Exxon Valdez disaster as Alaska's commissioner of environmental conservation, remembers wading through knee-deep pools of bubbling, thick oil. The smell of the pure oil was intense and pungent, he said.

When he returned to the same beaches years later, he found "surprisingly fresh" oil just below the sand.

"The damage that [the spill] created is something beyond anyone's imagination," said Michel Boufadel, Temple University's Civil and Environmental Engineering chair, who has just completed research on why the oil persists.

Oil-Munching Bacteria

An 11,000-person crew removed oil from the beaches until 1994, when government officials decided to end the clean up effort. At that time, what was left of the the oil was naturally disintegrating at a high rate, and experts predicted it would be gone within a few years. But they were wrong.

Oil naturally "disappears" through two processes: As the tide rises over an oil patch, the water sloughs off bits of oil, which then disperse into the ocean as tiny, less harmful droplets that can biodegrade easily.

Biodegradation occurs when bacteria or other microorganisms break down oil as part of their life cycle.

But Prince William Sound is what ecologists call a closed system—it's not exposed to big, pounding waves, so the oil has time to seep into the sand, according to Margaret Williams, who oversees conservation in the Bering Sea for the nonprofit World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

In these stagnant areas, oil-munching bacteria don't receive the nutrient-rich water flow they need to thrive, said Temple University's Boufadel.

"The assumption that oil is going to disappear is surprising—we have to put an effort into understanding oil spills and how they interact with the environment much better," Boufadel said.

Boufadel's research on the leftover oil was funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a state and federal partnership to restore the damaged ecosystem.

Shangri-La of the North

Twenty years of oil exposure has injured this stretch of Alaska's coast, which WWF's Williams calls the Shangri-la of the north.

In its first toxic sweep, the oil spill killed about 250,000 seabirds, 4,000 sea otters, 250 bald eagles, and more than 20 orca whales, according to WWF.

Today, one of the orca pods that lost family members has not recovered.

Sea otters and harlequin ducks continue to die by digging into the sand for food and releasing buried oil.

At the bottom of the food chain, pink salmon eggs and small invertebrates such as mussels and clams are not yet back to their original population levels.

And local fishers, who lost more than U.S. $286 million after the herring fishery collapsed in 1989, are still waiting for the fishery to rebound.

Stake in the Heart

Solutions exist to clean up the oil, Temple University's Boufadel said: For instance, increasing water flow to the most isolated patches could help the oil-hungry microbes do their job.

But the focus now should be on how to prevent spills in the future, said Takahashi-Kelso, now executive vice president at the Ocean Conservancy.

"Twenty years out, the real value of what we've learned is what decisions we make and how wise we are in managing risk," he said.

For instance, the disaster inspired the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which, among other measures, requires that by 2020 all oil tankers like the Exxon Valdez have double hulls—a layer of protection that may prevent oil spills.

But the U.S. government's recent plan to sell offshore oil-drilling leases is risky, especially when the region is already threatened by climate change, WWF's Williams said.

For instance, oil drilling could hurt Bristol Bay, "the little engine" of the Bering Sea that produces up to half of the United States' wild seafood, Williams said.

"To add new carbon dioxide emissions by developing petroleum resources," she said, "is driving another stake in the heart of America's Arctic."

Exxon Valdez Case Gives Arctic Oil Lessons: Witness
Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 25 Mar 09

WASHINGTON - "A thick pancake of shiny black" covered the still waters of Prince William Sound in the hours after the Exxon Valdez split open in an ecological disaster that offers lessons for any future forays for Arctic oil, eyewitness and conservationist Dennis Kelso recalled.

As Alaska's environment conservation chief 20 years ago, it was Kelso's job to enforce clean-up standards around the supertanker on March 24, 1989, as it leaked oil into prime fishing grounds.

The Valdez ultimately spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaskan waters, fouling 1,300 miles of coastline and disrupting or killing marine wildlife.

The clean-up cost more than $2 billion and is still proceeding. Exxon, now known as ExxonMobil, paid some $1 billion in damages, and state and federal governments are seeking $92 million more.

Kelso, now with the environmental group Ocean Conservancy, remembered traveling to the spill site in a small Coast Guard vessel with Alaska's then-Governor Steve Cowper, about six hours after the Valdez hit Bligh Reef.

"There's a thick pancake of shiny black, it was really calm," Kelso said in an interview. "We were right next to the vessel, the Coast Guard (boat) nosed up against the Exxon Valdez, which was listing and hanging on the reef, and the governor and I climbed up the rope ladder ... up to the deck.

"There was a skeleton crew there, but no one from Exxon," he said.

What struck him, apart from the pungent smell of newly spilled oil, was that Exxon's legally approved clean-up plan was not under way as it should have been. But he found plenty of Exxon personnel at an "incendiary" town meeting in the town of Valdez.

RUBBER BOOTS AND THREE-PIECE SUITS

"The governor and I walked into this meeting and were the only ones who've been on the tanker," Kelso said. "We're obviously oily ... we're both wearing rubber boots ... and the Exxon officials are there but they're wearing three-piece suits."

Kelso saw the Valdez spill and its aftermath as a systemic failure.

"It was the breakdown of an industrial system that the public had been assured would not break down," he said. "And because it was thought to be so reliable, some of the safeguards had been dismantled."

Beyond the ecological devastation, Kelso said, the damage from the Valdez disaster calls into question whether Arctic offshore drilling should be part of U.S. energy strategy. Clean-up and recovery of oil has never been successfully accomplished in rough, ice-laden Arctic water, he said.

The Bush administration's decision to offer millions of acres (hectares) of oil and gas leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and Bristol Bay were based on 40-year-old information that failed to take the effects of global warming into account, Kelso said.

Climate change spurred by human activities -- such as the emission of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and fossil-fueled vehicles -- has hit the Arctic region roughly twice as hard as temperate areas. Arctic summer sea ice has decreased dramatically in the last two years.

"At a time when the entire set of ecosystems is under deep stress from global climate disruption, we would be well advised to go carefully when we think about extending these industrial activities," Kelso said.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

Twenty Years After Valdez Spill, Exxon Grows In Alaska
Mike Blake, PlanetArk 25 Mar 09;

ANCHORAGE - Twenty years ago, when crude oil was gushing out of the wrecked Exxon Valdez supertanker and Prince William Sound was being blackened by what would become the nation's worst tanker spill, oil giant Exxon Corp was vilified in Alaska.

Bumper stickers said the corporation's name was the "sign of the double-cross." A sarcastic T-shirt took jabs at the company's perceived arrogance, proclaiming: "Exxon: We Don't Care. We Don't Have to Care."

Today, Exxon Mobil Corp, as the company is now known, is expanding in Alaska and officials are striking a conciliatory tone about the tanker disaster that has defined the company in Alaska and much of the world.

"The event around Valdez, you can't overstate how tragic it was and how it was such a low point for the company in our 125-year history," said company spokesman Alan Jeffers. "We understand the feelings of the people of Alaska about the spill itself and the continuing impact that it had and recognize how difficult it was."

As economic malaise forces other oil companies to cut back, delay projects and lay off employees, Exxon has embarked on this season's biggest new project in Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope region -- a 50-mile (80-kilometre) ice road, and a two-well drilling program at the long-dormant Point Thomson field.

The company has put over 250 employees and contract workers on duty at Point Thomson, despite a legal dispute in which the state is trying to revoke leases for nonperformance.

Exxon has tripled its Anchorage office space, said Craig Haymes, the company's Alaska production manager. It is actively examining options for a massive natural gas pipeline, he said.

And it has boosted its community contributions. This year, Exxon became one of the four prime sponsors of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, ponying up $1.25 million over five years.

This is all part of a move into a higher-profile role as an oil-field operator rather than a mere investor in the North Slope's Prudhoe Bay and other properties operated by other oil companies such as BP Plc or ConocoPhillips, according to Exxon officials.

"We've been in Alaska for 50 years. We'll be here for another 50 years," Haymes said.

DAMAGE REMAINS

But with still-pungent oil lingering on some beaches, Prince William Sound herring stocks nearly wiped out by an epidemic that fishermen believe was triggered by the spill, various animal populations depleted and residents exhausted by long years of still-unresolved litigation, many Alaskans are still bitter.

A June 25 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which shrank a punitive award that had originally been $5 billion to a mere $507.5 million, was devastating to fishermen, Alaska Natives and other spill litigants. Meanwhile, Exxon is prospering, with more than $30 billion in cash on its balance sheet.

"Exxon is very, very healthy, unlike Prince William Sound," said state Senator Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat. "I think Alaskans for several generations will have a bad taste in their mouths from that incident."

Some political experts say lingering anger at Exxon has been reflected in state policy.

A year ago, Governor Sarah Palin suggested Exxon was unwanted as a partner in a long-desired but as-yet-unbuilt North Slope natural gas pipeline.

"The sentiment shared by a lot of Alaskans is, you know, Exxon, don't let the door hit you in the stern on your way out if you choose not to participate in progressing development of Alaska's resources," Palin said at a news conference a year ago.

Alaska's Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin, who has been in the forefront of the battle to revoke Point Thomson leases so that they can be sold to other companies, once issued a statement saying he "did not trust" Exxon to follow through with its promises.

Still, French said, if Exxon is trying to improve its operations and make more contributions to Alaska's economy and nonprofit organizations, the move should be welcomed.

"They shouldn't be punished or excoriated for that," he said.

(Editing by Bill Rigby and Marguerita Choy)