Who is Responsible for the Exxon Valdez disaster?

Three years ago I attended a presentation on the Exxon Valdez wreckage on the reef South of Valdez, Alaska.

The speaker was none other than the former US Attorney who was part of the prosecution team where Captain Hazelwood and others were charged with negligence, alcohol use, etc, in one of the worst oil spills ever.

Jerry began his presentation by asking for a show of hands on how many of us (150) thought that Hazelwood was either drunk or impaired to some extent on the morning in question.

95 of us raised our hands. We are so gullible!!!!

Hazelwood had one drink at 6:00 PM in Valdez on his way back to the ship. The government has the receipt from the bar. He was scheduled to embark at about 2:30 AM the next morning. When he arrived back at the dock, the message waiting from him directed he depart at 9:00 PM that evening to make room for another tanker that was inbound.

The Exxon Valdez departed as ordered.

Then Jerry pulled out a map of the shipping channel which shows the passage routes of all ships to and from Valdez.

Here comes the surprise! All outbound ships, by order of their owners, are directed to travel South on the East side of the shipping channel to avoid ice bergs!!! Being a loyal Captain who had been plying these waters for 13 years, Hazelwood did as he was told. He left orders for the First Mate to make the turn to Starboard (right) at a given time based on speed and distance to avoid hitting the reef which they all knew was there.

The First Mate was late in redirecting the ship back into the shipping channel and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Jury has awarded 10 billion dollars to Valdez. The Charge? Negligence! Hazelwood has his license suspended. The lawyers made a bundle.

The judgment is under appeal because of the items above.

When the US Government got involved, they knew all this crap!

So, lets not be to quick to put the blame on this latest disaster until all the info is public!

Bests,
John
 

repost 1-8-05
 

Regardless of what led up to the actual 'hitting' of the reef ... it probably wouldn't have amounted to anything at all ... if the one at the helm hadn't gone back and forth and ripped a bigger hole in the hull.

I did hear from the City Mayor who was Police Chief in those days that Valdez got $100,000 for letting Exxon use the animal shelter incinerator to 'burn the waste.



That they also used the Ayeska incinerator and put 2 incinerators side by side ... each emiting the maximum allowable per EPA air quality standards ... and that they shipped some out, and they buried some (wish I knew where) ...

And that they trucked some to Prudhoe Bay and had the North Star Borough under VECO (their front co) to use an incinerator there to burn up the waste from the oil spill cleanup. (Why don't they consider an incinerator still in use as a cause of sea ice melting?) There's also another waste incinerator that has been added at North Pole, Alaska since those days ... burning 24/7's That has to have an impact, too.

Some of our people, seems to be a lot for a small community are getting brain tumors. Do you think it might have something to do with 2-butoxyethanol getting in the air?

The 5 billion that has grown to 7 billion is for the oiled communities (of which Valdez is NOT one) But alas, that hasn't been paid, yet ... but soon.

The govt? I think they're clueless

You must be an important person to have such an introduction.  Margaret
Dear Margaret,
Not important at all, just in the right place at the right time. This presentation was so impressive. All of us were mesmerized with this new information. I wish it was available on the net. Perhaps someday it will be. I will call tomorrow to find out the status of this information.
Bests,
John
I don't know about how drunk Capt Hazelwood was or wasn't, but I do know a little about the icebergs and shipping lanes.

During most of the 1980's I worked at the research lab of a large oil company that just happened to own half the Alaskan pipeline. I left the joy of their employment at the end of 1988. Sometime shortly before that I learned this:

A statistician at the lab had a project of tracking and predicting the movement of the icebergs being calved by the Prince William glacier (I think that's the name -- too lazy to look. It's the one NW of Valdez). This was his project because the bergs were getting in the shipping lanes.

He'd go up there in the summer and run around the sound in a rubber raft logging bergs, then come back to the lab and do his modeling thing.

The day he was telling me this, he was all agitated because he had just finished presenting his findings to management. He was telling them it was an accident waiting to happen because the glacier was calving more and more bergs. And that some of them were black and next to invisible. Hence, the tankers would have to veer farther East to avoid the icebergs in the shipping lane.

When he told management something needed to be done, he was given the what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it look. Mind you, this was BEFORE the accident.

So you don't have to twist my arm about what really happened.

Since the accident happened after I left the company, I never knew what this guy thought of things post accident.

I wonder what the tankers do now?   Della
I guess, I should clarify re the shipping lanes from Valdez. The Exxon Valdez was well clear of the assigned shipping lane, to the East, when the "accident" occurred. If it had not been for the Coast Guard inquiry and Court, this information would never have come to light.

I am waiting for the former Coast Guard Attorney to contact me on this issue. Will advise.

Bests,
John  Support VERPA 

Post 1-8-05   e-mail Margaret