Hazelwood Allowed to Seek Coast Guard Blame

A judge cleared the way Friday for Joseph Hazelwood’s lawyers to blame U.S. Coast Guard negligence rather than the skipper for the nation’s largest oil spill.

Superior Court Judge Karl Johnstone decided to allow cross-examination of two Coast Guard traffic monitors on the role that the agency’s Vessel Traffic System played in the grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez last March 24.

After brief legal arguments, Judge Johnstone ruled that the monitors can be questioned about how closely they were watching radar and whether they had a duty to notify Hazelwood that his ship was approaching rocky Bligh Reef.

However, Johnstone refused, for now, to admit as evidence a blood-alcohol test given to one of the monitors 13-to-15 hours after the disaster. The test showed that one monitor, Bruce Blandford, had a reading of 0.203--more than double the legal limit for drunk driving in Alaska. Blandford has said he had four drinks of bourbon and water on returning home after the accident.

The judge said he would reconsider his ruling if Hazelwood’s lawyer, Dick Madson, can prove the issue’s relevance. Madson, who maintains that the monitor was drinking on duty, said he planned to call experts to say that the drinks consumed after work could not have produced such a high reading.

On Thursday, Johnstone refused to admit the results of a urine test showing that the second monitor, Gregory Taylor, tested positive for marijuana three days after the accident.

Most of the testimony so far has focused on liquor consumption. The prosecution maintains that Hazelwood spent the hours immediately before his ship sailed drinking vodka with shipmates and that he was drunk when the tanker grounded.

The tanker spilled almost 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil, blackening hundreds of miles of shoreline, killing thousands of animals and hundreds of thousands of birds. Exxon says it has spent about $2 billion so far in cleaning up the mess.

Hazelwood, 43, is being tried on a felony charge of second-degree criminal mischief and also on misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment, negligent discharge of oil and operating a vessel while intoxicated.

Testimony is to resume Monday with Taylor and Blandford scheduled as witnesses.