The Night Alaska Bled: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Okay, I’m dating myself here, but I remember the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989 very clearly as news coverage of it splashed across every tv screen in the country. I was nearly 13 years old when it happened and although I don’t remember the criminal trial against Captain Joseph Hazlewood, I remember the devastation it caused to wildlife.
Roughly 500,000 birds, 3000 sea otters, 300 bald eagles, and 300 seals died due to the oil contamination. This of course doesn’t include the thousands of fish, dozens (or hundreds) of whales, and all sorts of other marine life. The Captain breathalyzed over the legal limit, yet was not convicted of a felony.
Now some 35 years later with a curiosity about how the trial unfolded, I learned that the plaintiffs relied heavily on a diverse coalition of scientific experts, including marine biologists, toxicologists, and environmental economists. These experts were tasked with proving not just the immediate death of wildlife, but the long-term, invisible impacts of the spill on the marine ecosystem.
Economists placed a dollar amount on “non-use values” — which essentially measured how much the American public valued preserving an undamaged Alaskan wilderness.
Exxon’s defense used an army of experts to challenge the plaintiffs’ data and minimize the calculated damages. Defense experts argued that fluctuations in fish populations could be attributed to natural cycles rather than the oil spill, and they critiqued the plaintiffs’ economic models as speculative and scientifically unsound.
Exxon paid out $2.5 – $3.5 billion in damages, the Captain was convicted of a minor negligence misdemeanor (which he successfully appealed), and the United States Coast Guard suspended his masters’ license for a period of nine months.
It’s an interesting case study where technical and scientific expert witnesses helped shape the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which included, Environmental Legislation, Spill Response & Mitigation, and Wildlife Rehabilitation. Of course, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010 was the most disastrous marine oil spill in US History: it released nearly 150 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s explore that one next.
Scott Rousseau