Alaska and Exxon Assessing Plans for the Next Battle

On the whole, Wilbur Driver was pretty glad to be unemployed.

The retired military man heaved duffel bags full of oily clothes into a station wagon Friday for the drive home to Eagle River, Alaska. He planned to do some fishing, some relaxing and, clearly, some thinking about the extraordinary summer he spent in Prince William Sound.

“I’ve been here since April,” he said. “I stood in line with 500 people back then and signed on as a rock washer.”

With his military experience, Driver quickly became supervisor of 1,000 workers on beach cleanup duty in the wake of the March 24 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

On Friday, Driver was one of the last to come in as Exxon demobilized an army that at one point totaled 12,000 personnel, 1,200 boats and 100 aircraft. Exxon says it has spent more than $1 billion so far and has put no cap on additional expenditures.

“We’ve done a lot of positive work,” Driver said. “And, yes, there’s a lot more to be done.”

But just what will be done and who will pay for it was shaping up as a battle of wills and public relations between a giant company and a giant state.

Although praising Exxon Corp.’s “good-faith effort” during the last six months, Gov. Steve Cowper on Friday visited Valdez and suggested that the winter plan submitted by Exxon and approved by the Coast Guard was inadequate.

To fill the perceived gaps, he said, the state is earmarking $21 million--which it expects Exxon to repay--for winter monitoring, technology development, light cleanup and community outreach.

Exxon’s general manager of Valdez operations, Otto Harrison, called the state proposal “a non-plan” that largely duplicated Exxon’s own without being as specific.

“The only thing in theirs that’s not in ours is social services, which I consider an appropriate state expenditure,” Harrison said in a brief interview.

The state plan relies on coastal villages to draft proposals for monitoring the oil’s movement and changes in composition, and responding to any situations that need immediate cleanup, such as winter storms pushing oil towards fish hatcheries.

Exxon’s plan, which appeared to be more detailed than the state’s, called for a crew of 300 workers--mostly in Anchorage--to remain available for emergency cleanups.

It also called for contracts with 19 villages to do monitoring and light cleanup, and would support 26 scientific studies.

One of the points stressed by both Exxon and the state was the need for further research and development of technology to deal with oil spills of the 10.8-million-gallon magnitude of the Exxon Valdez.

The state pledged to review about 1,300 proposals that have poured in from experts, entrepreneurs and everyday citizens. They range from complex chemical solutions to outlandishly simple ideas, such as covering the remaining oil with chicken feathers.

“One person suggested using macaroni and cheese. That was the weirdest,” said Larry Dietrick, director of the state’s division of environmental quality.

Although Harrison has declared that the coastline is “almost free of oil,” the state estimates that about 147,000 barrels remain unaccounted for, much of it in the water and below beach surfaces--sometimes 4 feet deep.

The state plan includes $960,000 for a strike force of mental health professionals to help prevent and treat stress disorders in communities impacted by the spill.

State environmental officials have complained that Exxon could safely continue large-scale cleanup operations for another six weeks. Friday’s weather in Valdez, for example, was clear and sunny.

But some of the returning workers substantiated Exxon claims that sudden storms and fickle seas on the Sound already have posed safety threats.

“I’ve seen 8- to 10-foot seas suddenly turn into 12- to 15-foot seas,” said Gary Krauser, who chartered his 36-foot boat to the cleanup effort. “It can be dangerous.”

Cowper told about 250 reporters and townspeople that “obviously, the beaches are not clean, and, obviously, we are not satisfied with the condition of our beaches and the water.”

Just how dirty the rugged, 1,000-plus miles of affected shoreline is has turned somewhat into a cat-and-mouse game of public relations.

It seems to come down to who has the best rock collection.

Thirteen oily black rocks sat on a table at Cowper’s press conference. According to Dennis Kelso, the state environmental commissioner, they were rocks from Green Island, which Exxon touts as one of its success stories.

Harrison had earlier shown the press some clean Green Island rocks--the result, he said, of high-powered washing with hot water and bioremediation, which involves spraying a French chemical fertilizer, Inopol EAP 22, to attract oil-eating bugs.

Although the toll on wildlife included nearly 1,000 sea otters and 34,000 birds, many apparently healthy fish and animals still populate the Sound and stricken Gulf of Alaska.