There Was No Excuse

The crude oil clotting the shores of Alaska’s Prince William Sound mocks Washington’s oft-made promise that oil development on federal lands and in federal waters will be conducted only in an “environmentally sound” manner. As late as Monday, Secretary of the Interior Manuel J. Lujan was vowing that the Bush Administration would forge ahead with exploration and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska’s North Slope in an “environmentally sound” manner.

The fact that 8,548 tankers had successfully negotiated Prince William Sound in the past decade to load up at the port of Valdez lulled too many people into believing that the operation was so environmentally sound that it was immune from accident. The 8,549th tanker proved otherwise. The nation now demands a new definition of “environmentally sound.”

The Exxon Valdez did not become an environmental disaster just because the ship’s captain may have been drunk and absent from the bridge. This was not a simple traffic accident. Veteran observers of the trans-Alaska pipeline system from its inception had said that if ever there was to be a serious accident, Prince William Sound was a likely site.

There was no excuse, then, for cutbacks in the U.S. Coast Guard budget that made it impossible to fully monitor the movement of tankers in and out of the sound. There was no excuse for the failure to have adequate oil-spill equipment on hand in Valdez, and the trained personnel to use it immediately. There was no excuse for the failure to ring the ruptured Exxon Valdez with containment booms within the five hours that had been promised by the oil industry’s accident contingency plan (It took a day and a half). There was no excuse for assuming that the worst likely spill would involve 200,000 barrels of oil or less. The Exxon Valdez hemorrhaged 240,000 barrels of Alaska crude and, but for luck, might have lost even more of its 1.2-million-barrel load.

In his address to oil company officials, Interior Secretary Lujan said Monday: “If the image of an uncareful and uncaring industry prevails among the U.S. public, then we can kiss goodby the domestic oil and gas development in the (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), off shore and in the public lands.” But Lujan has it wrong. These are public lands and the first responsibility for seeing that development is conducted in an “environmentally sound” manner is that of the federal government. Rather, the government has been too much of a willing partner in exploiting them.

The federal government cannot assume that the oil companies will follow every environmental stricture on their own. It must see that they do. The federal government cannot count on the companies maintaining adequate equipment and personnel to use in the event of a spill. It must insist on it, and inspect and test the gear frequently. The federal government cannot take for granted that the oil companies will react with alacrity when a disaster is in progress. It must be the primary watchdog and take control. These decisions involve the public’s land, the public’s waters, the public’s wilderness shorelines, the public’s fish, the public’s waterfowl, the public’s marine mammals. The public’s interest must be protected and that can only be achieved by the public’s representatives.

President Bush, echoing the oil companies, insists there is no connection between the Exxon Valdez and drilling the Arctic wildlife preserve. But physically, there is only one way to get the oil out and that is through Prince William Sound. Since Good Friday, the two are linked environmentally and politically. The Reagan and Bush administrations have conducted only the most superficial and optimistic of environmental assessments of the impact of drilling on the Arctic refuge, while promising that this industrial enterprise in the wilderness will be achieved in an “environmentally sound” manner. Since good Friday, those words are hollow ones. A skeptical nation will demand a new definition.