'what could be in
store for Sakhalin and Hokkaido'
The 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska
provides an important lesson in what can be lost in one simple wrong
turn of a loaded oil tanker. The spill became for the oil industry
worldwide what Chernobyl had become for the nuclear industry and Bhopal
for the chemical industry - the symbolic, defining standard against
which all other such disasters are measured.
Policy decisions
and assertions before the spill provide an important context in which
to understand this spill, and the situation in Sakhalin. When oil was
discovered on Alaska's north slope in 1968, the immediate question
became how best to get the oil to market. Of the various options
discussed - which included building a railway, a road to truck it,
submarine tankers, ice-breaking tankers, and even huge cargo airplanes
- the only two given serious consideration were to build a pipeline
east from Alaska across to connect with a pre-existing pipeline system
in western Canada, or a pipeline south across Alaska to the ice-free
port of Valdez, for subsequent shipment by tanker through Prince
William Sound.
At the time, the national environmental
community and the Prince William Sound fishing industry favored the
Canadian option, specifically fearing that a major oil spill into the
Sound would catastrophically disrupt the productive marine ecosystem
and the fishing industry. The oil industry, however, wanted to build
across Alaska, saying this route would be cheaper, quicker, and they
also had their eye on the potentially lucrative Asian market for
exporting Alaska oil in the future. Although the Sound's fishermen won
a law suit to stop the construction of the Alaska pipeline, the Nixon
administration bowed to powerful domestic oil interests, went to
Congress and narrowly passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)
Act in 1971, clearing the way for building the line across Alaska.
To help win
approval in Congress, the administration and the oil industry made
three important safety promises to the people of the United States and
Alaska - the tankers would be double-hulled, there would be a
state-of-the-art vessel traffic system (VTS) observing each tanker
navigating the Sound, and Alyeska (the pipeline owner) would have an
oil spill response capability second to none. As a result of such
promises, some naive politicians boldly stated that "not one drop of
oil will ever enter Prince William Sound."
But in subsequent years, after pipeline
construction began, all three of these promises essentially evaporated.
The federal government was convinced by the oil industry that
double-hulled tankers were unnecessary, and in 1974 the U.S. Coast
Guard announced that Alaska tankers would have no special requirements,
such as double hulls. The State of Alaska tried unsuccessfully for
several years to convince the federal government to change this policy
and to require TAPS tankers to be double-hulled. In 1976, the Alaska
Legislature passed the Alaska Coastal Management Act requiring oil
shippers with lower standards to pay more into the coastal management
program. This provided a significant financial incentive for shippers
to build double-bottom and double hulled tankers, and several were
built for Alaska in the next few years. But the shippers filed a law
suit against this act just after the oil started flowing through the
pipeline in 1977. And in a profound blow to oil transportation safety,
the shippers won this suit in 1979, with the court ruling that the
state could not preempt federal inter-state shipping authority. This
victory for the industry put the issue of additional double-hulled
vessels and that of additional spill response preparedness to rest at
the time.
But these
short-term cost saving victories for the oil industry in the 1979 set
the stage for the environmental, social, and economic tragedy of the
Exxon Valdez spill ten years later.
On the evening of
March 23, 1989, the Exxon Valdez loaded 1.3 million barrels of Alaska
north slope crude oil, and headed out from Valdez. The mates and
captain, having been involved either in cargo loading operations or
drinking across the bay in town, were fatigued and of questionable
performance capability. After disembarking the harbor pilot just
outside Valdez Narrows, the master radioed Valdez Coast Guard
requesting permission to cross over from the outbound traffic lane into
the inbound (north-bound) lane to avoid glacial icebergs. The Coast
Guard VTS had been downgraded in the early 1980s and now could not
track tankers as far out as Bligh Reef.
Noticing heavy ice in the lanes, the master
steered the vessel on across the inbound lane to avoid ice, put the
vessel on autopilot, and increased to full sea speed of 14 knots. He
then left orders with the third mate to turn the vessel back into the
lanes when it was abeam the Busby navigational light, and went below to
his quarters. At this point, there was a fully loaded, single-hulled
supertanker at full sea speed, outside the designated traffic lanes, on
autopilot, heading directly toward Bligh Reef, unmonitored by the Coast
Guard VTS, piloted by an exhausted mate without pilotage credentials
for this seaway - a recipe for disaster. Although the third mate later
testified that a command was given to take the vessel off autopilot and
that he gave a 10 degree right rudder command at Busby light, the
voyage data recorder indicated later that the vessel didn't turn until
5 minutes (a full mile) later. It is strongly suspected that the vessel
was not taken off autopilot until it was too late, and just after the
bridge crew realized the error, switched off the autopilot and the
right turn commenced, they slammed full ahead into Bligh Reef at 12:04
a.m., March 24.
The impact
ruptured 8 of the 11 cargo tanks, and most of the oil flowed out in the
next 12 hours of falling tide. The oil remaining onboard was
successfully lightered onto other tankers over the next few days, and
the tanker was eventually salvaged and rebuilt in California. The
response and cleanup was a notorious failure, as little equipment or
dispersants were on hand, much of it didn't work, and a strong
northerly storm quickly scattered the oil beyond control. While a
little oil was recovered from beaches, the amounts recovered were of
little consequence to the coastal ecosystem - the damage was
extraordinary.
Results of several
hundred million dollars of government and private scientific studies
indicate that the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, though not the largest in
terms of volume spilled, was the most biologically, socially, and
economically damaging spill in history. Over 40,000 tons of a
relatively heavy crude oil spilled into an extremely productive,
pristine, cold-water, protected nearshore environment - Prince William
Sound, Alaska. The spill occurred at the time of critical biological
productivity - herring were moving nearshore to spawn, migratory
seabirds and whales were returning to the area, juvenile salmon were
just emerging from streams into the nearshore zone, harbor seals and
sea otters were pupping, and the spring plankton bloom had just begun.
The spilled oil traveled with currents and wind southwest through
Prince William Sound, and thus was exposed directly to hundreds of
miles of relatively protected shoreline in its path. In a very real
sense, a major spill couldn't have happened at a worse time and place.
The Exxon Valdez became the defining example of
ecological disaster from marine oil spills. The oil eventually spread
over 10,000 square miles of Alaska's coastal ocean, as far as 600 miles
from the sight of grounding. Over 1,500 miles of some of the world's
most extraordinary shoreline were oiled, including three national
wildlife refuges, three national parks, wilderness areas, a national
forest, and extensive areas that had been inhabited for millennia by
Alaska Natives. Less than 7% of the spilled oil was recovered, despite
a $2 billion attempt - the most massive ever - by Exxon and the federal
and state governments.
The initial
biological effects are well documented and understood by many
throughout the world, due largely to the extensive media coverage of
the disaster. The effects were devastating - virtually everything
associated with the sea surface was significantly impacted. More marine
mammals and seabirds were killed directly by the oil than in any
man-made disaster ever. The marine mammal death toll included at least
25 killer whales out of an area population of about 180; 3,500 - 5,500
sea otters, most of the population in western Prince William Sound; and
200 or so harbor seals. Direct mortality of seabirds has been estimated
at 300,000 - 645,000, with an additional loss in chick production of
over 300,000 following the spill. Some colonies of murres lost 60% -
70% of breeding birds. The 1989 year class of herring, that was spawned
in the nearshore zone just as the oil arrived, was essentially lost to
the population. Terrestrial mammals including river otters, brown bear,
deer, and mink were all affected. And, much of the intertidal zone was
essentially sterilized by the toxic oil, and invertebrate communities
severely altered.
Such body counts, however, leave only a
relatively sterile, abstract understanding of the acute and devastating
impact of the oil. Many of us watched in vain as countless sea otters
shivered in oiled fur that once kept them warm, whales surfaced in oil
which they then inspired, birds struggled unable to fly, river otters
crawled off to die under rocks, and thousands of juvenile salmon showed
up dead through oil skimming operations. The immediate, overwhelming
sense of tragedy was eloquently conveyed by Walter Meganak, a regional
native elder who said in June, 1989:
"...what we see
now is death. Death, not of each other but of the source of life - the
water...It is too shocking to understand. Never in the millennium of
our tradition have we thought it possible for the water to die. But it
is true."
Beyond the immediate biological damage, there
were profound sub-lethal, chronic impacts. There were brain lesions in
seals, reproductive failure in birds and mammals, blood chemistry
problems, morphological deformities such as curved spines, reduced
growth rates, altered feeding habits, liver damage in otters and seals,
eye tumors and viral diseases in fish, and general overall
physiological impairment.
Some of the
ecological damage didn't begin to manifest until several years into the
event. Herring populations collapsed for the first time on record in
1993. Of the 120,000 tons of herring expected to return to the Sound
that spring, only about 20,000 tons showed up, more than 30% of which
were infected by a serious viral disease (viral hemorrhagic septicemia)
and a fungal disease. In the succeeding 7 years, only small harvests
have been possible in just two years. And although pink salmon runs
were strong in the first couple of years, they too collapsed in 1992
and 1993 seasons. Millions of outmigrant salmon were exposed to oil as
juveniles in 1989, and many of the eggs of these fish that were laid in
streams in 1990 were further exposed to oil. Thus, both even and odd
year pink salmon were heavily exposed to oil, and the progeny of both
of these year classes failed in 1992/1993. The ecosystem impact of
these fish stock collapses has been profound. Herring is considered a
cornerstone species in the ecosystem, being a principal prey item for
over 40 other species including seabirds, seals, sea lions, whales, and
fish. The extensive mortality in sea otters in western Prince William
Sound precipitated an explosion of some of their prey species, notable
green sea urchin, causing urchin barrens where they have denuded large
areas of macroalgae which are critical habitats for certain other fish
and crustaceans.
And this year - ten years after the spill -
only two injured species are listed by government agencies as recovered
- bald eagles and just recently, river otters. Listed as still recovering
are black oystercatchers, clams, murres, intertidal communities,
marbled murrelets, blue mussels, herring, pink salmon, red salmon, sea
otters, sediments, and subtidal communities. And those still listed as not
recovering include pelagic cormorants, red-faced cormorants,
double-crested cormorants, harbor seals, harlequin ducks, killer
whales, and pigeon guillemots. Those listed as recovery unknown
include cutthroat dolly varden trout, Kittlitz's murrelet, and
rockfish. And today there is still a substantial amount of residual oil
in beach sediments of the oil spill region, mostly in Prince William
Sound. This oil resides under rocks and in intertidal sediments, and
because it has solidified into an asphalt on the surface, the lower
layers exist in a relatively unweathered, toxic condition. This
residual oil has been found to exhibit toxic effects down to
concentrations as low as 1 part per billion.
And beyond
ecosystem impacts, humans working on the cleanup experienced an average
oil-mist exposure some 12 times in excess of permissible exposure
limits. A maximum overexposure of 400 times the permissible limit was
reported from one beach being treated with high-pressure, hot water
washing. Over 1,800 worker compensation claims were received by the
government in 1989, most with respiratory complaints. In summary, the
biological damage of the Exxon Valdez spill was severe, unprecedented,
and in most cases ongoing ten years into the event. Many scientists
expect long-term damage to continue for decades to come.
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