Exxon Valdez ruling stuns oil spill victims
Published Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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Capt. Joe Hazelwood reports the Exxon Valdez is hard aground and leaking oil
ANCHORAGE -- Sylvia Lange took a 40-minute shower to calm down.
The Cordova woman had just heard that a divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday slashed the punitive damages award in the nation's worst oil spill ever. Instead of paying $2.5 billion, Exxon Mobil Corp. — the world's largest oil company — will instead shell out $507.5 million, a fraction of the $5 billion originally imposed by a federal jury in 1994.
"A side of me is shocked, but the fatalistic side of me has seen Exxon win from day one," said Lange, 55. "I don't want to turn into a cynical old broad, but I have become a very skeptical person and that started on day one."
Like scores of others in her coastal fishing town, Lange is among 33,000 plaintiffs in the case. The payout translates to an average of $15,000, although many plaintiffs were in line to receive much more.
The 5-3 ruling comes almost two decades after the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground at Alaska's Bligh Reef in 1989, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound that so many Cordova residents rely on for their livelihoods.
Lange used to commercially fish for salmon and haul for the lucrative herring fishery, which crashed for good several years after the spill. But she said the disaster was about more than lost money.
It's also about the end of Alaska Native traditions and a subsistence lifestyle for several villages in the region. Because of the spill, many Alaska Natives were forced to stop harvesting seal, salmon and herring roe and move to urban areas, never to return, said Lange, who is part Aleut and Tlingit.
"A cultural link was definitely broken," she said.
The spill killed hundreds of thousands of birds and other marine animals, inflicting environmental injuries that have not fully recovered, according to numerous scientific studies.
Exxon maintained that many studies found the area healthy and thriving, countering findings of continuing damage. The Texas company, which posted a $40.7 billion profit last year, had said that punitive damages would be excessive punishment beside the $3.4 billion in cleanup costs, compensatory payments and fines it already has paid.
"The Valdez oil spill was a tragic accident and one which the corporation deeply regrets," Exxon said in a prepared statement Wednesday. "We know this has been a very difficult time for everyone involved. We have worked hard over many years to address the impacts of the spill and to prevent such accidents from happening in our company again."
Mike Lytle, a third generation Cordova fisherman, said many of the local crews were out with the salmon fishing fleets Wednesday, but those remaining in town were walking around stunned, shaking their heads. A lot of people he knows were planning their retirements on the punitive damages they waited so long for.
Lytle, 56, said his share would have amounted to about $800,000 under the $2.5 billion award. He wondered how much of the smaller take will go to his attorneys.
"I always felt that big oil was going to win," he said. "But now I found out what true meaning of punitive damages is: puny."
Robert J. Kopchak lost a quarter of his earnings when the herring fishery crashed in the early 1990s. Adding to his family's burden at the time, he still owed thousands of dollars on two herring permits that had cost a total of $150,000 and are worthless today.
Punitive damages and compensatory damages already paid to plaintiffs don't begin to pay for that loss alone, he said.
"It really hurts," he said of Wednesday's ruling. "It gives big business the formula they need to calculate the cost of their actions when they destroy the environment. This gives them the formula to calculate their risk, period."
Environmental groups rushed to slam the ruling. The organization Oceana said the decision removed one more incentive for oil companies to be careful.
"This turns America's resources to the oil industry and only the U.S. Congress can do something about it," said Oceana vice president Jim Ayers. "If the Congress doesn't act, this means that America's resources, including our marine life, are now in serious jeopardy and can be bought and destroyed for a mere pittance."
Community Discussion
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One tenth of the jury award. The outrageous decision by the Supreme Court is NO justice for all the victims of the largest environmental disaster in United States history. The distance of oiled beaches in Alaska would be comparable to the Eastern United States from Maine to Florida. It has been more than 19 years since the EXXON Valdez disaster. And for many of the victims it has been NO compensation at all.
At a point in our Nation's thirst for oil, EXXON has recklessly flaunted the legal system, and jeopardized any oil and gas development in the waters of the United States. Congress will no doubt be called to "make laws" that will not be friendly to business as usual, IF THIS IS THE EXAMPLE.
Chill out. I was in Valdez for the oil spill cleanup. Everybody made a ton of cash, especially the fisherman. No need to cry for them.
While I agree that the $500 million should be adjusted for inflation from 1994 (which it may be, hard to tell from the news), it is important to note that these are punitive damages. The victims are at least supposed to have already been compensated financially for their damages. Punitive damages are above and beyond compensatory damages and are meet to punish, not compensate, and thus are a windfall.
Despite the economic success or failure of people effected by the spill, the principle of the decision is still what matters here. It continues to show us that large corporations will ALWAYS be able to snake out of their responsibility given enough time.
Way to go Exxon!
I say alaska kicks out big oil and establishes it's own oil company and gas refineries even if it take billions of dollars and many years of legal hoops. The only use Alaska has to the United States is oil to be sucked off of including by foreign oil companies. Although it may be a bit late to base our economy off of oil now as the prices have skyrocketed and electic vehicles are going to make their way into our lives within 3 years. Alaska should invest in hydrogen production where very cheap NanoSolar panels could inhabit useless land which separates water using electricity. This massive solar powerplant could be used to product billions of cfu of hydrogen in the summer where the sun doesnt seem to dissapear and be stored in underground tanks for the winter or be shipped off to the US market to be used as raw fuel to be burned in powerplants or in the controversial Hydrogen Car. NanoSolar(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar) only costs 1$ per watt and I would shed out $5000 myself to power my house and electric car in the summer and at the same time have GVEA Pay ME for the electricity it produces.
Hey Moondoggie-
How how much cash did the fish, marine mammals, birds, shellfish etc. make from the spill clean-up? What about the irreparable damage to the marine and near-shore ecosystem?
By reducing the punitive damage award to such an insulting level, the US supreme court is sending out the message that it is OK to destroy our coasts. That oil is more important than our marine resources, cultural heritage and our ability to make a living off the ocean's ever-reduced bounty.
This is a disgrace!
I like the drilling our own oil and building our own oil refineries idea. Solar is unlimited and it would be a great back up and offset. Why can't we have a happy medium where we diversify. It's stupid and lazy to rely on oil solely. Look where it got us.
Why does it have to be extreme one way or the other people. Nothing is black and white.
Humm, Looks like the magic number for the whole you revolves around $500,000,000.00 starting to think it's a sign. Looks like that would be enough not to have the oil companies to be locked out of monoployizing everything! More hopes and prayers for those that have lost family members waiting for this judgment.
This is no surprise, but that itself is a sad commentary. It is hard to believe in the rule of law when people with money can thwart the courts and juries.
Opsamk... yup, I agree, yer right about that...
....there's many much better ways to make good science and good business work together for a happy healthy Alaska.
This "prevailing wisdom" is based on an 1818 maritime law when piracy and merchantmarine were still closely linked..
..Since when does Geo.Bu$hit sit on the SCOTUS?
[I'm sure he called his appointees on this one]
10% Hazelwood - 90% Alyeska Smuggling NGL's
For 30years BigOil has been smuggling too much condensates mixed with the crude thru TAPS..
the gassy-runny-soupy mess is from too much "ENRICHMENT"
[STUDY THESE PICTURES CAREFULLY]
http://www.dec.state.ak.us/SPAR/images/g...
[A GASSY RUNNY SOUPY MESS at 40F]
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
"ENRICHMENT"
.......................get the picture?
"ENRICHMENT"
We originally designed TAPS to run at 150F because NS-crude is a hi-viscosity product.
Does anybody know what a "Coiled Tanker" is??
..it's a tanker that uses steam heat coils to heat the solidified crude from 40F to 100F.
If TAPS and the Tankers were properly loaded from the source according to original system design...
...the crude would not have made 10% of the mess that happened in Prince William Sound.
The crude-oil at 40F in those tankers should be the consistency of frozen molasses, and should actually plug the hole in the bottom of the ship to prevent it from sinking if it hits the rocks.
Alaska should fly the Big-Dipper upside down under the Jolly-Roger pirate flag..
..because it is surely run by pirates.
The NGL's should be stripped out of TAPS in Fairbanks and Valdez to be used in Alaska for hi-pay jobs making plastics to build HDPE-pipe for managing all of Alaska's natural gas resources and water-resources properly.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ga...
Alaska should quit exporting oil and just export gas.
All of Alaska's hydrocarbons can efficiently turned to gas.
http://www.globalresourcecorp.com/
...another dark day in the tarpit of america, permanently stuck on stupid in the Dark Ages.
www.fairbanksgas.com
...trying to make a difference
......flash/rumble
Well said, Este.
TAPS should be converted into a gasline...
no more oil should be aimed at Alaska's coastline.
The very stuff,
the component of the oil-spill that made it a disaster is called "condensates" also known as NGL's..
propane, butane, white-gas pentanes, etc.
This very stuff is what is being denied to Fairbanks and the cold isolated villages to provide affordable power and heat.
The Very Thing..
The Very Thing..That Makes US Rich..
..it Makes you Poor
When I was in hi-skool in Fairbanks [a few years before TAPS] my science teacher had an oil-engineer show the class a gallon jar of NS-crude.
At 40F it would take hours to run out of the jar, you could stick your finger in it and your finger wouldn't stick to it until body heat would melt the paraffins.
This was the same demonstration used to convince the federal scientists at FERC to approve the construction of TAPS.
This why we designed TAPS to operate as a hot-pipe at 150F.
When the happy-hooligan shot a hole in TAPS he showed the world that you can shut off the heat and still pump that thin runny "enriched" liquid.
http://www.dec.state.ak.us/SPAR/images/g...
res ipso loquitor
After we worked our tails off building TAPS --> GREED changed everything.
Everybody involved with Alyeska is just as responsible for the disaster in Prince William Sound as Hazelwood...
...and still
...and still to this day all of you people are Stuck on Stupid.
SHAMELESS SCAMMERS unworthy of the Beauty of Alaska.
Just too damn cheap and greedy to separate the two products--
the heavy tar&wax crude and the NGL's
Just too damn cheap and greedy to ship them separately.
Real Alaskans aren't this stupid..
..this bad behavior came from the sons of slave-owners,
The Confederate State of Texas.
Texas
Arctic
Petroleum
Scam
Alaska was a great place to live before TAPS..
..now it's just a rape&run resource extraction colony for multinational corporations.
Next we'll be placing bets in LasVegas on who can make a bigger mess..
The Pebble Mine? or The Tar Sands in Alberta?
The Reckless Rich are the Real Terrorists
Gee, Mr.Policeman, after the Rapture can I have your police car???
1,000,000 powerful people in america need to be trussed in straitjackets and thrown in a PeptoBismol-Pink rubber room on the funnyfarm.
.....flash/rumble
1/5.... 20%... 5 X 5 = 25.... Geesh! 10% sounds better, I guess.
How many have energy mutual funds? How many fishermen are state subsidized? How many were from out of state, jumping on the bandwagon? How many were looking for the FREE RIDE? $800k settlements for a subsidized industry, where boat loans, and commercial licenses, were subsiduzed by the state.... Many by out-of-staters, no investments here, never buy much here, get their cash and bail out when the season is over, no state income tax for out-of-staters... they have been ripping us off forever. No investment in US, Alaska, Alaskans... A lot of these free-loaders were just looking to cash in.... THAT is what won't be discussed, but was certainly known. How many in Kodiak planned for years to be millionaires? State subsidized programs, just like a lot of the loggers. Most of us never see anything close to these type of benefits, yet B & M when the supposed 'little guy' gets it from Big Oil. Exxon is a dragon, yes, but a lot of these folks are snakes...
Alaska should not give Exxon gas leases
"A lot of people he knows were planning their retirements on the punitive damages they waited so long for."
This plan is as solid as planning your retirement on winning the lottery. I don't feel bad in the slightest for "these" people.
So, Happyinak,
How much of these punitive damages were going to go to the ecco-system? I'm sure the fish and birds and mammals were banking on this money for their retirement also...
I, by no means, agree with the damage amounts paid but soley the way this article is written I get the feeling people wanted money out of the deal and nothing else. All-in-all this screams just another case of the American dream. Sue and get paid.
Making Exxon pay any amount of money, no matter how large or small, won't change what happened or what can happen in the future.
So you are saying that if I were to sell you a piece of defective land and you built a million dollar house on it and later it collapsed, you think you would be OK and not try to sue me or receive little compensation?
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