[Corp. Watch] ExxonMobil still dodging responsibility for worst U.S. industrial disaster

[Corporation Watch]

[NOTE: The opening-night film at the 4th Annual Anti-Corporate Film  
Festival (www.countercorp.org), "BLACK WAVE", documented the legacy of  
the Exxon Valdez oil spill]


Still Digging Up Exxon Valdez Oil, 20 Years Later

By Bryan Walsh

(Time magazine, June 4) -- Twenty years since the Exxon Valdez tanker  
ran aground in southeastern Alaska on March 24, 1989, spreading an 11- 
million-gallon crude-oil inkblot into Prince William Sound, the  
formerly pristine coastal waters once again appear clean and untouched.

	Birds like the arctic tern and the endangered Kittlitz's murrelet can  
be seen skimming the astonishingly beautiful Alaskan coastline while  
sea otters backstroke through the cold, clear waters of the Sound.

	It is a remarkable turn-around since the Exxon spill, the worst man- 
made environmental disaster in U.S. history -- the immediate shock of  
which killed hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that made their home  
in the Sound, along with sea otters that choked on the crude. And over  
the long term, populations of orcas, killer whales, herring, and other  
species would be injured by the accident.

	Today, the coast is clear and clean. But clean is not the same as  
pristine. Decades ago, some of the spill found its way to a beach on  
Knight Island in the Sound, a site that scientists studying the  
accident designated "KN-102", but which during the multi-year cleanup  
would earn another name: Death Marsh.

	Here on Death Marsh, Mandy Lindberg, a scientist with the National  
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Alaska's Auke Bay,  
turns over a shovel of sand and broken rock to reveal a glistening  
pool of brackish oil. The crude can be tied chemically to the Exxon  
Valdez, and more oil can be found beneath the beach at Death Marsh and  
at a number of islands around the Sound.

	"I wouldn't have possibly believed the oil would last this long,"  
says Lindberg. "Studying the spill has been a great learning  
experience, but if we had known in the years after the spill what we  
know now, we would have been looking for oil much earlier."

	What scientists like Lindberg know now is that the legacy of the  
Exxon Valdez is still visible -- physically, on the beaches of Prince  
William Sound and in the animal populations in these sensitive waters  
that have yet to rebound fully.

	Using funds from the original spill settlement between Exxon and the  
state of Alaska, scientists from NOAA have carried out major studies  
that show oil still remains just beneath the surface in many parts of  
the Sound -- close enough for animals to be affected by it.

	"The oil may not leak out in quantities that are immediately visible,  
but that doesn't mean it's not there," says Jeep Rice, a NOAA  
scientist who has led the studies. "We thought the clean-up would be a  
one-shot deal -- but it's still lingering."

	Rice and his colleagues picked a sample of 90 random sites at beaches  
around the Sound and dug about 100 small pits at each site -- more  
than 9,000 in all. They found oil in over half the places they  
sampled, despite the fact that only 20 percent of the beaches that had  
been hit hardest by the spill, like Death Marsh, were included in the  
study.

	Altogether, the NOAA scientists estimated that about 20,000 gallons  
of oil still remain around the Sound, usually buried between 5 inches  
and 1 foot below the surface.

	Those 20,000 gallons, out of at least 11 million spilled, might not  
seem like much, and scientists initially assumed that whatever oil was  
left behind during the original clean-up would eventually break down  
naturally.

	But it turns out that crude oil -- especially when it is spilled in a  
cold region like southeastern Alaska -- lingers in the environment for  
decades. And as long as the oil is there, it can harm the animals that  
might come into contact with it.

	Sea otters, for example -- the face of the Valdez spill -- dig  
millions of foraging pits in beaches around the Sound, enough to come  
into contact with oil numerous times. Although the population of sea  
otters in the area has recovered since the spill, the return has been  
slow, and researchers suspect the oil might be the reason.

	"The pattern shows evidence that they're still being exposed," says  
Rice. "It's not enough to kill them outright anymore, but it's a  
chronic exposure -- and in an environment like this, when species live  
close to the edge, that could make a difference."

	Scientists are still digging into the Sound's beaches, trying to get  
a better sense of how much oil might be left and whether it will be  
possible to finish the clean-up. And there are still other questions  
that need to be answered.

	The Sound's valuable commercial herring fishery collapsed completely  
a few years after the spill -- there are just 10,000 tons of the fish  
left today, down from a peak of 150,000 tons before the accident --  
and researchers are trying to figure out what impact the oil might  
have had on the species' decline.

	"We'll never be able to fully link the herring to the oil, but we  
want to know why the species won't come back and whether it's worth  
spending the money to help it recover," says Rice.

	Exxon-funded scientists have released their own studies, which  
question the NOAA team's findings and claim that there is little oil  
left in the Sound. But Rice's studies have held up under peer review  
-- and this reporter personally saw oil buried in a handful of beaches.

	Ironically, the Exxon spill has greatly enhanced scientists'  
understanding of the effect that crude oil can have on a vulnerable  
marine environment: it is more toxic to life than we thought, and  
harder to clean up.

	"Even the best clean-up will fall short," says Craig Tillery, a  
deputy attorney general for the state of Alaska -- whose Bristol Bay  
and Chukchi Sea are being considered for offshore oil and gas  
exploration -- and a member of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee  
Council, which funded the NOAA studies. "You have to make sure this  
never happens."