Today, on the 25th anniversary of the EXXON VALDEZ oil spill,

[Blue_In_AK]

here are a couple of excellent articles from The Mudflats commemorating the occasion. I remember that morning like it was yesterday, that sick, punched-in-the-gut feeling of helplessness. I wish before I die that I could see a significant shift from carbon-based energy, but I'm not getting my hopes up. We're just that stupid.

First from Shannyn Moore. http://www.themudflats.net/archives/42558

EXXON spill: 25 years of tears

<snip>


A few friends and I made a list of all the suicides that happened as a result of the spill. It didn’t happen for about four years. If the same percentage of people in the Gulf who are affected by the BP spill kill themselves as the Exxon Valdez – you’re looking at 45,000 dead bodies. We took it hard.

The average life expectancy of an Exxon Valdez cleanup worker? Fifty One.

Guys would come back to the boat complaining their urine smelled like diesel. No respirators. C-130s spraying the beaches…with what? Corexit.

Exxon still doesn’t have marked offices in Alaska. In 25 years, the State and Exxon have not reconciled. The Federal Government and the State of Alaska were complicit in the spill and the cover-up. Precautions, provisions, and preventative measures had all been made law. It seemed that wasn’t the issue…the problem was finding a government agency to enforce those laws. Exxon’s cost cutting measures insured a disaster; laid off spill responders; not fixing the disabled Raycas radar; the containment boom barge iced into dry-dock. All those profit enhancements were to be expected of a company that answered only to it’s shareholders. The government agencies that looked away from negligence and their responsibility have never been held accountable.

<snip>

And the scientific perspective from Rick Steiner.

http://www.themudflats.net/archives/42249

EXXON VALDEZ - Lessons Learned & Lost


In recognition of today’s 25-year anniversary of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska (March 24), this seems a good time to reflect on lessons learned, and lessons lost.

1. Oil spill “cleanup” is a myth: Once oil has spilled, the battle is lost — it is impossible to effectively contain, recover, and cleanup. Exxon spent more than $2 billion trying to clean up its Alaska spill, but recovered less than 7 percent. BP spent $14 billiontrying to clean up its 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, and although they collected some at the wellhead, burned and dispersed some (with toxic chemicals), it recovered only 3 percent from the sea surface and beaches. Seldom is more than 10 percent of a marine oil spill recovered. We should insist that industry and government are prepared to respond to a spill, but we should not expect any spill response to be effective. And, this is particularly true for spills in ice-covered Arctic waters.

2. Oil spills can cause long-term environmental damage: Industry rhetoric aside, oil spills can cause long-term, even permanent, ecological injury. Oil, water, fish, and wildlife don’t mix. Millions of innocent organisms were killed by the Exxon Valdez spill — marine mammals, birds, fish, and invertebrates. Even extremely low concentrations of oil, in the parts-per-billion, can cause long-term ecological injury. A quarter of a century after the Alaska spill, only 13 of the 32 monitored populations, habitats, and resource services injured in the spill are considered fully “recovered” or “very likely recovered.” Some populations, such as Pacific herring, pigeon guillemots, and the AT1 killer whale pod, are still listed as “not recovering.” And thousands of gallons of Exxon Valdez oil remain in beach sediments, still toxic, and still affecting marine organisms. It is likely that the coastal ecosystem injured by the Exxon Valdez spill will never fully recover to what it would have been absent the 1989 spill — an important realization for policymakers.

3. Oil spill restoration is impossible: Once a coastal or marine ecosystem is “broken,” it cannot be “fixed.” All the spill restoration money in the world can’t repair an injured coastal ecosystem. The best (and least) we can do is to protect a spill-injured ecosystem from additional human-caused injury, giving it the best chance to recover naturally. An oil spill restoration program presents an opportunity to fix a lot of previous bad behavior in our coastal ecosystems. There should be sufficient funds to acquire conservation easements on coastal habitat, reduce chronic pollutant input, restore natural water flow, reduce overfishing, establish additional protected areas, and so on. And to be clear, science is observation, not restoration. Also, people affected by spills deserve adequate compensation, but no amount of money can fix broken human communities.

<snip>

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, this is a tough week for Alaskans, the 25th anniversary of the spill, the 50th anniversary of the Good Friday quake. Remember the victims.