Blue View - Valdez After the Oil Spill
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We had originally planned to give Valdez a pass. It’s not on the way to anywhere, requiring about five hours of driving, down and back, to visit. It’s the southern terminus of the Alaska oil pipeline, and what we expected to see was a big tanker port, with a steady stream of massive ships in and out, with all the associated sights and smells. And finally, it was the epicenter of the largest oil tanker spill on U.S. soil. Even now, thirty-four years later, the images that come to mind for us when someone mentions Valdez are all those photos on every news station of the hundreds of people who worked so hard attempting to clean up the oil that inundated the shoreline, while trying to save as many of the oil coated birds and otters as possible.
Given all that, we did, nonetheless, pick up the brochures for the area, and after looking through them, we changed our minds. If the photos and tourist bureau blurbs were to believed, the Valdez area has made a significant recovery since the oil spill. We decided to make the trip and see for ourselves.
Marcie’s next blog will talk about our visit to Valdez, as it is today. I’d like to talk about the oil spill and what’s been done to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
The Spill
The supertanker Exxon Valdez left the Valdez Marine Terminal a little after 9pm on March 23, 1989. It had a full load of just over 53 million gallons of crude oil, and was bound for Long Beach, Ca. It was under command of a harbor pilot and was accompanied by a tug. (Most all harbors around the world require a ship entering or leaving the port have a pilot aboard. This is a highly qualified mariner, knowledgeable in the local waters and conditions who takes command of the vessel while it is underway in the harbor.) The ship’s captain, Joseph Hazelwood, retired to his cabin while the pilot was aboard. He took command of the vessel when the ship had cleared the Valdez Narrows and the pilot left the ship.
The shipping channel into and out of Valdez is very well marked, but the Columbia Glacier frequently calves small icebergs that drift into the channel. Many captains deviate from the marked channel to avoid hitting them, and this is what Capt. Hazelwood did by setting a course due south. He then turned the helm over to the third mate and went back to bed. The third mate, as it turned out, was not only unqualified to command the vessel, but was also sleep-deprived after remaining at the helm well past the end of his watch. He continued on that course, not realizing that the ship was heading for trouble, until the lookout yelled that the light marking Bligh Reef was bearing to starboard… bad news, as it should have been to port. He immediately turned to starboard and called the captain, but within seconds, the ship ran up on the reef.
The captain tried vainly to extricate the ship from the reef for about 45 minutes before hailing the coast guard, informing them, with what must be the understatement of the century, that “We’ve fetched up onto Bligh Reef and are apparently leaking some oil”. Eight of the eleven cargo holds aboard the Exxon Valdez had been ruptured, and within a little more than three hours, 5.8 million gallons of crude had poured into the waters of Prince William Sound. Eventually, about 11 million gallons would be released into the water, contaminating more than 1300 miles of coastline.
Some other factors leading to the disaster:
Captain Hazelwood, who had a history of drinking problems, including several DUIs, admitted to having “two or three” drinks earlier that evening. His blood alcohol wasn’t tested until ten hours after the incident, and at that point, measured 0.06 (0.08 is the level that will get you a DUI in most states, but the test has to be administered within three hours to be admissible in a court).
The ship’s collision avoidance radar, which would have alerted the crew to the fact that they were heading for the reef, was inoperative, and had been for more than a year. Exxon knew about it, but failed to get it repaired. I have a tough time understanding this… the original equipment on Nine of Cups, our watery home for 18 years, had an almost identical unit that we relied upon frequently while in unfamiliar waters or when visibility was poor. Surely, the unit on the Exxon Valdez could have been repaired, but even replacing it would have been only a few thousand dollars, about the same cost as one of the ship’s dock lines - a minor expense in the huge operating costs of the ship.
The Cleanup
In an ideal world, the oil slick would have been contained using floats and booms, then skimmers would be used to suck up the surface oil. (Actually, in an ideal world, the ship wouldn’t have run aground to begin with…). With the Exxon Valdez, the situation was far from ideal:
The equipment needed to contain a spill this large was not initially available.
The thick crude combined with the kelp in the area continually clogged the skimmer equipment once it was available.
Transferring the oil from temporary storage vessels to permanent containers was also difficult because of the oil’s thickness.
The many small bays, coves and islands made it impossible to contain the oil before it contaminated the shoreline.
Initially, chemical dispersants were also used to try to break up the surface oil. Dispersants work by breaking the oil into droplets that then sink below the surface of the water. The droplets don’t settle on the bottom, but disperse in the top thirty feet or so of the water, and eventually, over the course of months or years, dissipate. The use of dispersants is very controversial, but most would agree that it is a lesser evil than letting the surface oil spread unchecked. In this case, it didn’t work, first because it wasn’t applied to the right area, then because the seas were calm - the dispersants need wave action to mix with the oil.
Eventually, the oil spread to 1300 miles of Alaska coastline - more than the entire coastline of the west coast of the continental U.S. Over the next three years, 11,000 Alaska citizens worked with Exxon employees and government responders to try and clean up the oil and save as much of the wildlife as possible.
One method used to remove the oil from the numerous rocky coves of Prince William Sound was high-pressure hot water. The hot water removed the oil, but it was later discovered that it also displaced or killed the microbial populations. Many of these organisms are the basis of the marine food chain while others actually help in biodegradation of oil.
In the days and weeks following the disaster, approximately 250,000 sea birds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles and 22 orcas died, not to mention an unknown number of salmon and herring. Four workers also died as a direct result of the cleanup.
The Long Term Effects
The spill caused the fishing and tourism industries to crash. An estimated $2.4 billion in economic harm was done to at least 32 thousand people whose livelihoods depended on the fishing industry. It was more than a decade before it returned to anywhere near normal levels. There was also a drop of 38% in tourist visits and tourist spending in the entire southwest Alaska region over the following years.
On the twenty fifth anniversary of the spill, in 2014, researchers met to evaluate the long term impact of the spill. While many species had seemingly recovered, the harbor seal, orca, and the Pacific herring populations had not yet fully returned. The same was true of several species of seabirds.
In addition, they estimated that between 16,000-21,000 gallons of oil still remained on the beaches and coves of Prince William Sound. This seemed to be biodegrading at a rate of about 4% per year.
What Was Learned
Locally, the port of Valdez made a number of changes to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. An outgoing vessel is now escorted by two tugs from the port, through the Valdez Narrows and to the Hinchinbrook Entrance, 64 miles away. The tugs are capable of steering the vessel or taking it under tow, if necessary. In addition, several open water, spill response barges are stationed around the sound. These are purpose-built barges that can quickly contain, collect and store up to 300,000 gallons of spilled oil. (Note that 300,000 gallons is only about 2.5% of the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez. While the presence of these barges is much, much better than the response capabilities in 1989, they wouldn’t come close to handling another spill of the magnitude of the Exxon Valdez disaster.)
Nationally, following the Exxon Valdez disaster, a number of new rules and regulations were introduced. One required tankers sailing in U.S. waters to be designed with double hulls, reducing the likelihood of a major oil spill if a vessel runs aground or collides with another. (While a double hull probably wouldn’t have prevented the spill, a Coast Guard study estimated that the spill would have been 60% less). In addition, oil companies now face greater penalties if their tankers cause an oil spill.
What Happened to the Exxon Valdez
The Exxon Valdez was repaired and renamed, but once single-hulled tankers were no longer allowed in U.S. waters, it was used in Europe for a few years. When the EU instituted the same ban on single hulled tankers, it was moved to Asian waters. In 2008, the former Exxon Valdez was sold to a Hong Kong shipping company, who converted it to a bulk carrier and renamed it the Dong Feng Ocean. In 2010, the ship collided with another bulk carrier and was heavily damaged. (That ship really had some bad karma.) It was repaired once again, renamed the Ocean Nicety, then sold and scrapped in 2012.
What Happened to Captain Hazelwood
Exxon fired Captain Hazelwood soon after the incident. He was charged with second degree criminal mischief, operating a vessel while intoxicated and reckless endangerment, but was acquitted of all charges except misdemeanor negligence for discharging oil. He was fined $50,000 and sentenced to 1000 hours of community service. It took him five years to complete the community service in Anchorage, picking up highway trash and working in a homeless kitchen. He finished paying off the fine in 2002.
He never had his master’s license revoked, but was unable to find work as a captain again. Instead, he worked at various jobs, including as a teacher at the SUNY Maritime College, a maritime consultant and as a paralegal. He died in 2022
What Remains Today
Today, the town and the local economy seems to have recovered. The Alaska pipeline terminus is still there as is the tanker terminal. There are numerous commercial fishing boats and sport fishing boats as well whale watching and glacier tour boats. Other than a few placards talking about the big spill, you might not even be aware that this is where it happened. I’m told, however, that if you visit a remote cove or island, and dig a shallow hole in the tidal zone, it will soon fill with an oily, seawater muck. It may be several decades more before the last vestiges of the Exxon Valdez disaster are totally gone.
