ExxonMobil: “Please don’t give me a ticket, officer!”
Page October 30th, 2007
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| The spilled oil from the grounded Exxon Valdez spreads into Prince William Sound. Photo credit: USGS. |
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| An oiled white-winged scoter struggles on the beach at Green Island. Photo credit: State of Alaska Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. Click all photos to enlarge. |
Some of us remember it. Some of us were too young, or weren’t even born yet. But anyone who gives a damn about America and the breathtaking beauty, scale, and delicate ecosystems of its wilderness areas, should burn the Exxon Valdez catastrophe into their memory:
More than 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil poured through the punctured steel hull of a tanker grounded on a well charted reef in Prince William Sound on Friday [March 24, 1989] unleashing the largest crude oil spill ever to foul U.S. waters.
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The disaster threatened to wreak havoc in one of continent’s richest marine environments just as herring were returning to spawn and juvenile salmon were migrating from the rivers where they hatched.
The oil spill spread, in part pushed along by storms, ultimately polluting at least 1,300 miles of shoreline. The cause was simple: it was determined that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the tanker, was “too drunk to legally operate a ship“. After years in and out of court, Hazelwood eventually had to pay a $50,000 fine and do community service.
The environmental aftermath of the spill was heartbreaking, and we haven’t seen the end of it:
Some 2,000 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and about 250,000 seabirds died in the days immediately following the spill. Now researchers writing in the journal Science caution that more than a decade later, a significant amount of oil still persists and the long-term impacts of oil spills may be more devastating than previously thought.
[Note: Exxon-funded research says otherwise.]
Humans were profoundly affected too, which has resulted in seemingly endless litigation (going on 20 years) trying to get ExxonMobil to pay up. The latest news is in today’s Houston Chronicle.
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| Quarterly profit results for Exxon Mobil Corp. 1Q 2006 — $ 8.40 Billion 2Q 2006 — $ 10.36 Billion 3Q 2006 — $ 10.49 Billion 4Q 2006 — $ 10.25 Billion 1Q 2007 — $ 9.28 Billion 2Q 2007 — $ 10.26 Billion Source: Exxon Mobil |
Exxon asks high court to void Valdez spill damages
Since the Exxon Valdez plowed into an Alaskan reef in 1989, pouring 11 million gallons of crude oil into the clear waters of Prince William Sound, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. has paid $3.1 billion in fines, cleanup costs and environmental restoration, as well as $300 million in settlements with thousands of Alaskan fishermen, cannery workers and landowners.
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Exxon already got an Alaskan jury’s $5 billion punitive damages award reduced by half. Now it is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to erase it altogether. The high court discussed Exxon’s case in private last week and will announce as early as today whether it will accept it.
Now you can see why I’ve posted the graphic and table of Exxon’s quarterly profits. If you’re earning approximately TEN BILLION DOLLARS every three months, why is shelling out FIVE BILLION DOLLARS so damned difficult?
Update: The SCOTUS has agreed to hear Exxon’s case. See dailyKos writer AdamB’s comment, and the discussion.