Valdez Oil Spill Still Affects Native People

Don Knapp, 3/99

Gail Evanoff can still scoop up a handful of oil soaked sand and gravel from the edges of Chenega Bay, on Prince William Sound. She says, "This is the kind of clumps we still see all over our beaches."

Evanoff says oil from the '89 spill continues to kill and taint the seals, fish and shellfish that have served as part of the Chenega people's traditional diet. Despite assurances from Exxon scientists that the food is safe, Evanoff still has the same worries she had in the aftermath of the spill.

"It may not kill me as I live out here the rest of my life, but it'll sure harm the environment which I live, and my family." she said in 1989 after the spill.

Now, ten years after the spill, Gail Evanoff has seen its effects on her culture. "As a mother of four, my husband and I used be out here constantly on the beaches and the waters, teaching our kids how to subsist, teaching them how to hunt and I don't do that anymore. I never have since 1989. Its creating a tremendous void in our lives." She says.

Oil spill clean up money and the sale of half their lands to a public trust funded by an oil spill settlement brought more than 35 million dollars to the villagers.
More than a third of Chenega bay's 70 residents moved away.

Today kids zip around their island on four wheelers. Television dishes and the Internet connect them with the rest of the world. There's fear youngsters may reject the traditional lifestyle that has connected the native people to the land and waters of Prince William Sound.

Meadow Christensen was 9 at the time of the spill. She's now a college-bound high school senior. "The oil spill is all I've ever known. From my childhood growing up, since I was 9 years old, its all I've ever known. So I can't say how things might have been different or anything, cause I don't know."

In just that first year after the spill Charles Totemoff had already seen his village change. "Well, we've gone from a subsistence based village, now we're forced be on a cash based economy." He said in 1989.

Today, as president and CEO of the Chenega corporation, Totemoff works to develop his people's properties, "We will be developing things like hotels, boats for carrying passengers, cabins and lodges."

Subsistence hunting may still be important to the Chenega people, but now, so is the success of the Chenega corporation.

From all outward appearances, Prince William Sound is as pristine, and as beautiful as its ever been. But you don't have to dig very deep to find the legacy of 1989. Its not just what oil has done to the beaches, and the water and the wild life but what it has done to a way of life.

Permission granted 2-17-03 to link to text... but not to CNN logo

Now... compare the non-protected-harbor beaches * to similar beaches that were cleaned with Corexit or Inipol EAP 22....

It's likely that the ocean & winter storms cleaned the beaches just as well as beaches sprayed (poisoned) with chemicals.

Posted on www.valdezlink.com/brave.htm

Contact * regarding Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Cleanup Workers