Exxon Stalled Oil Cleanup, Official Says

Alaska’s top environmental official testified Sunday that a “reluctant and myopic” Exxon stalled efforts to clean up the nation’s largest oil spill by largely ignoring damage outside the immediate spill zone.

Dennis Kelso, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, told a congressional panel that the spill has caused “550 miles of oil, filthy foam and tar balls.”

He said that on the East Coast, it would be the equivalent of oil washing up on beaches from Boston south to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and possibly to the Potomac River.

“The industry’s response was reluctant and myopic, characterized by stalling techniques, disinformation and a refusal to pay real attention to damage outside of Prince William Sound,” Kelso told the five-member subcommittee of the House Interior Committee.

The congressional panel planned two days of hearings in Valdez, with testimony scheduled from state, federal and Exxon officials.

In another development Sunday, a state official said Exxon’s decision to pull cleanup crews from an oil-stained beach caught authorities by surprise, but a spokesman for the oil company defended the decision.

The oil company removed its workers Saturday from a pebble-strewn beach on the north edge of Smith Island, a site described only shortly before by the ranking federal official in charge of the cleanup as “far from clean.” The site was one of those visited last week by Vice President Dan Quayle.

Move to Other Sites Told

Exxon spokesman Pete Stilling said the cleanup crews remained on the island but were moved off the northern beach in order to attack more heavily soiled areas nearby. The island is considered crucial to the annual seal pupping cycle.

Al Ewing, an assistant regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said he was on the north beach Saturday morning and found it still “very difficult to walk on” because of the oil.

The tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground March 24 on a reef in the sound after filling its storage tanks with crude from the trans-Alaska pipeline. More than 11 million gallons of oil poured into the sound.

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