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$92 Million More Is Sought for Exxon Valdez Cleanup
By Felicity Barringer
The New York Times

Friday, June 2, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 1— When the Justice Department and the State of Alaska reached their $900 million court settlement with the Exxon Corporation over the environmental damages caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, they agreed that, if unforeseeable damages occurred later, the two governments had 15 years to ask for $100 million more.

Associated Press
The Exxon Valdez, right,
spilling oil off Alaska in
March 1989.

On Thursday, with the deadline approaching, the governments exercised this clause. They announced in a statement that they would seek $92 million from Exxon Mobil to clean up stubborn patches of oil, whose most toxic components, they say, have not dissipated since the spill in 1989.

Federal and state lawyers said in statements that they believed the lingering oil was still interfering with the recovery of animals in the area. The worries, environmentalists say, are focused on species that frequent the intertidal areas of Prince William Sound, like clams, mussels and harlequin ducks.

With this action, "we are aggressively seeking to restore natural resource damages unforeseen at the time of the 1991 settlement," said Sue Ellen Wooldridge, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Justice Department, in a statement. "Our goal throughout this process has been to pursue all scientifically and legally appropriate means of restoration."

While the oil can be found along several miles of beach, tying its effects to the slow recovery of some species may not be easy, one environmentalist said.

"No one doubts there is ongoing damage," said Eleanor Huffines, of the Alaska office of the Wilderness Society. "The challenge is that the ocean is so dynamic that it will be a hard thing to do to make the connection. But since this has been the most well-studied area since the spill, they have been able to document the lack of recovery."

Mark Boudreaux, the media relations manager for Exxon Mobil, focused on this uncertainty in a statement responding to the action. A link between the remaining oil and effects on wildlife, Mr. Boudreaux said, "is no more than a hypothesis." He added, "Nothing we have seen so far, however, indicates that this request for further funding from Exxon is justified."

Of the $900 million paid by Exxon, $145 million remains in a trust fund administered by a council representing the federal and state agencies and local groups. "If there were any matter in Prince William Sound that needed restoration or repair," Mr. Boudreaux said, "it was the trustees' duty to use this money to remedy the problem."

The New York Times

Along with the request for the $92 million, which may be decreased or increased to the maximum $100 million after negotiations, the state and federal agencies gave Exxon a blueprint for how the restoration should proceed.

The request for additional money had the support of Alaska's two senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, Republicans who had encouraged Exxon to provide the extra $100 million without the formal "reopener" process set by the 1991 settlement.

In March 1989, the Exxon Valdez supertanker, with an inebriated captain, ran aground on Bligh Reef, ruptured and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sound, contaminating about 900 miles of shoreline.

The damage to the fishing industry and to native subsistence hunting lasted for years. The herring population, a crucial link between the tiny plankton at the bottom of the food chain and the larger predators at the top, crashed four years after the spill. Of the $145 million remaining from Exxon's original payment, a significant part has been set aside to compensate herring fishermen.

Exxon Mobil continues to appeal a separate punitive damage award of $4.5 billion resulting from the spill.

The move to push for the extra money comes at a significant moment in the political life of Alaska, a state whose economy has been oil-dependent for three decades, but which is also encountering a steady decline in its share of oil revenues because of declining production of North Slope oil.

A new natural gas pipeline promises to be a source of income. But how ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and BP, the energy industry's three major players here, will be taxed on overall levels of energy production is the subject of intense debate in a special session of the Legislature.

The open question is whether the industry, if it sees those tax discussions in the Legislature going too far against its interests, will abandon the pipeline, leaving the state without these potential new revenues.

So even though the legal deadline set the timetable for the state and federal governments' actions Thursday, it is an awkward moment to push for more money from Exxon Mobil. The company, in the statement of Mr. Boudreaux, made no allusion to its other major political and legal struggle in Alaska.

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