23/03/2004

Oil in Prince William Sound, March 2004.
Greenpeace/Visser
Front page: oiled sea otter, March 1989.
Greenpeace/Merjenburgh

The Sound and our fury

It's been 15 years since the Exxon Valdez ran aground. Since then Exxon has fought tooth and nail not to pay compensation for the damage the disaster caused.

Exxon even had the gall to fund biased research, have it published in legal journals and then use it as evidence in its appeal cases.

When the Exxon Valdez ran aground on 24th March 1989 it spilt 11.2 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. The ship's captain was charged with the serious 'felony' offence of criminal mischief. He also faced the lesser charges of 'operating a vessel while intoxicated' and 'reckless endangerment'. He was acquitted of these charges, and only convicted of 'negligent discharge' - a minor offence.

At the time, it was said that lawyers not even born yet would be working on this case. Today they're 15 years old.

Exxon faced a host of criminal and civil charges over the disaster, and in 1991 the company pleaded guilty to all of them. It was ordered to pay US$100 million restitution and a $25 million fine for the criminal charges and a further $900 million (over 10 years) for the civil settlement.

Three years later a federal jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to Alaskans affected by the disaster, including 34,000 fishermen. At the time this was the largest amount of damages ever awarded by the US legal system.

Exxon appealed the ruling and several years' legal wrangling followed. Then in January 2004, a judge stood by the jury's decision, and ruled that Exxon pay $4.5 billion in punitive damages and approximately $2.25 billion in interest (for the period since the jury's 1994 verdict). A further $1.65 billion for the plaintiffs' legal team was added to the bill. Exxon plans to appeal again.

In December 2003 The Washington Post revealed that Exxon funded and placed anti-jury research into key legal journals. The articles, which began to appear in 1997, questioned the ability of juries to set punitive damage awards, and claimed that these awards were "bad for society".

Exxon cited the articles in its legal arguments throughout the long period of legal wrangling. The company claimed the articles were representative of recent social science research. Richard Lempert, law professor at the University of Michigan, told the newspaper the research was "designed to serve Exxon".

Exxon has a history of funding biased research to suit its ends. It has paid for and promoted a string of climate sceptic scientists and industry front groups to undermine the scientific consensus on global warming, and mislead the public.

Exxon's latest research clearly aims to influence decision makers to change the legislation enabling juries to set damages. Eventually, Exxon plans to have its case overruled. Indeed, the company doesn't want to pay anything more for the spill, ever again.

The $900 million in damages that Exxon did pay was spread over 10 years, and the final payment was made in 2001. The amount was a small percentage of Exxon's profits. Exxon has earned over $70 billion in after-tax profits since the spill.

The first ruling found that Exxon is still liable for damages of up to $100 million to compensate for natural resource damages from 2002-2006 that "could not reasonably have been known nor/anticipated" at the time of the original settlement.

A recent report published in SCIENCE magazine argues that the damage was widespread and long-lasting. The natural environment and local wildlife has continued to be affected by exposure to the toxic sub-surface oil that has remained in the region.

However, neither the Federal nor State administrations have requested any additional damages. We believe the Bush and Murkowski administrations are eager to keep the memory of the Valdez in the background, as both governments want to open Alaska to further oil development.

Exxon has of course disagreed with the findings of the report. Frank Sprow the vice president for health, safety and environment, claimed the Sound had "essentially recovered" by 1999. In response to an earlier but similar report on the long-term damage to the Sound, Sprow asserted that if there is any remaining oil, it doesn't hurt the wildlife as "oil is a naturally occurring material".

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