It's been more than 22 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped 10 million gallons of crude into Alaska's Prince William Sound, but you don't have to look very hard to find lingering impacts from the spill. You can actually still find oil on the shore there, the fisheries are still struggling, and some bird species haven't recovered. But now Exxon is saying it won't pay up, despite an agreement to cover those additional cleanup costs.
Five years ago, the US government asked Exxon for money to continue the cleanup effort there. In its latest court filing, Exxon appears to be trying to shirk its obligation to pay for additional damages. In its filing to the US District Court in Alaska on September 30, the company argues that the agreement it reached with the government only covers "restoration" work—not additional "clean-up."
It's interesting to see this "restoration" vs "clean-up" terminology being used here. From this article it isn't exactly clear how Exxon actually defines those terms. But they do appear to argue that no further "restoration" work is necessary in Prince William Sound. Last summer, the Times-Picayune reported from Cordova, Alaska and found much there, particularly the herring fishery, never has been fully "restored" although Exxon has managed to recover much of its initial liability.
Twenty-one years later, the herring that once signaled the start of the summer season are largely gone, rendering $300,000 permits worthless. Losses are tallied in divorces, suicides, repossessed boats, depleted college funds, friends who moved away. Cynicism, normally a stranger to small towns, has lodged permanently in people's craws, receiving a fresh injection two years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court whittled a $2.5 billion punitive-damages judgment against Exxon down to $500 million.
In Louisiana BP has also been using the term "restoration" in a slightly different but no less misleading fashion which Mark Moseley speculated about in this Lens column back in July.
We need to tell BP to stop using the term “Gulf Coast Restoration” unless they are referring to long-term projects that replace lost coastal mass. Conflating clean-up with restoration is not only intellectually offensive, it undercuts Louisiana’s ability to educate the nation about the status of America’s most important wetland and the need to save it. Pretty photos of wildlife and seafood festival updates may have a soothing effect, but in no sense do they amount to evidence of restoration. Rinsing out the salt you threw into a gaping wound doesn’t make you a healer.
I suspect BP’s abuse of language is no accident. They know “Gulf Coast Restoration” is a loaded term in these parts. Associating their effort with the larger mission is a way of obscuring how superficial their clean-up has been to date. BP should immediately cease using “Gulf Coast Restoration” in their ads and websites, and replace it with a more descriptive term like “Oil Disaster Recovery.”
More than semantics is at stake. In the coming years, BP will pay billions in fines, and hopefully a huge slice of those monies will be use to fund long-term plans to save the coast. Louisiana must work with Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that we use this money to fund goals that truly address our long-term needs: If we waste this money merely aiming to reconstruct the coast along BP’s absurd March 2010 “baseline,” it will amount to another wasted opportunity, a big one.
What the Alaska experience should make clear is that, despite efforts to advertise it all away, South Louisiana is going to be dealing with the consequences of this disaster for quite a long time to come. For example, Alaska herring, meet Louisiana white shrimp.
The lack of shrimp around Grand Isle has forced some shrimpers to sail west toward Dulac and Delcambre, said Dean Blanchard, owner of a shrimp dock in Grand Isle.
“Our Grand Isle beach is producing less than one percent of the shrimp it normally produces,” he said.
Many fishermen are blaming the lack of shrimp on the oil leak, said Guidry of the Louisiana Shrimp Association.
“I think you will find the parishes that were most affected by oil are down (in terms of shrimp),” Guidry said. “We are just seeing something (a lower number of shrimp), and what we see on the beaches is a minute fraction of what went on in the Gulf. I don’t think we will ever know what it (the oil) killed.”
Guidry cited a study published Sept. 26 by LSU researchers Fernando Galvez and Andrew Whitehead. The study found that exposure to oil causes changes in fish genes that could have implications for future fish populations.
To whatever extent it looks like BP is "being held accountable" now it's worth noting that, like Exxon, they will always have plenty of time and money with which to define that accountability down.
In the meantime, the worst thing we can do is stop paying attention.
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