Coast Guard to Order Exxon to Finish Cleanup

Exxon will have to come back in the spring to finish cleaning up after its massive Alaska oil spill and “they’ll do what we tell them to do,” the Coast Guard commandant said today.

“The job is not done and it is going to have to be finished up next year,” Adm. Paul Yost said of the March 24 spill on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

A White House spokesman said, “We expect Exxon to live up to its commitment. If that means going back in the spring, we expect them to go back in the spring.”

Yost said Exxon underestimated the cleanup work by 20% “and they need to come up there in the spring.”

“Between what Exxon has done and will do we’re going to have an area that’s recovered in a few years,” he predicted.

In an interview on the NBC “Today” show this morning, Dennis Kelso, Alaska commissioner of environmental conservation, said that “the shoreline is not clean now.”

“Treatment is not the same as cleaning and in fact we have a long way to go,” he said.

“We want to be working over the winter. We think Exxon should join us and we need to have Exxon committed to come back this spring.”

At a news conference Thursday in Valdez, Alaska, an Exxon spokesman called its six-month cleanup almost a complete success.