Exxon Alaska Cleanup May Be All Over

Exxon Corp. has called it quits for the year--maybe forever--in the cleanup of America’s worst oil spill.

After a second summer of difficult, unpleasant labors in this embattled ocean bay, the giant oil company ordered its work force back to Houston, tallied its costs, which now exceed $2.2 billion, auctioned off warehouses full of cleanup gear, patted itself on the back and even published a cookbook.

It now leaves the beaches to another round of scrubbing by powerful winter storms, the wildlife to an uncertain but somewhat encouraging future and the assessment of responsibility to an army of lawyers and lawsuits that are almost certain to carry the legacy of Capt. Joseph Hazelwood and his ship, the Exxon Valdez, into the 21st Century.

“Clean shore, clean water,” says Exxon cleanup manager Otto Harrison. “It summarizes what a lot of the beaches look like . . . . Our objective was to achieve cleanup, and that’s what we’ve got. Anything that could be done in a sound environmental manner has been done.”

Compared to last year at this time, Exxon has fewer doubters these days, even with such a brash statement as that. The beaches look better, in most cases much better, the salmon have returned in record numbers, birds fill the skies and many Alaskans have profited handsomely thanks to the spill.

Critics worry that the nation’s attention span on the crisis may expire well before some of the long-lasting impact from the 11-million-gallon spill becomes evident. And they fear that just 18 months after the March 24, 1989, disaster, many Alaskans have recovered from the shock faster than the environment, meaning back to business-as-usual in this oil-dependent state.

For now, autumn is in the air in Alaska. Weather has already begun marching in from Siberia. Exxon is counting on huge, storm-driven seas to rinse away remaining oil from beaches like those here at Sleepy Bay on Latouche Island, where oil is still visible. Hundreds of miles of other beaches, some that were once deep in tar and crude, already appear almost pristine to the untrained eye.

Exxon says that come spring, there is likely to be nothing left to clean.

“I’m hard pressed to tell you what there would be to do if we did come back,” says Scott Nauman, Exxon operations coordinator. He leads a tour of the beaches downwind from the evil-named Bligh Reef, which tore open the hull of the off-course Exxon Valdez.

The Coast Guard agrees that winter storms will determine whether the cleanup is officially declared ended next year.

“There’s still oil out there. Nature’s going to have to help us out a little bit, and we may have to help it out next year,” said Rear Adm. David Ciancaglini, federal spill coordinator.

The state of Alaska, however, is firm about the work left to do, notwithstanding the brutal scrub-brush of winter.

“I don’t know if we’ve lost our audience or not,” Gov. Steve Cowper said at a press conference recently in Anchorage. “We haven’t lost our oil on the beach and that’s what we have to treat next summer. We’re in for the long run whether we like it or not, so it’s up to us to apply whatever pressure and whatever authority we have to make sure that the oil is cleaned up as best we can do it. We have to keep pushing.”

Environmentalists are even more insistent.

“Exxon is banking (on) the cosmetic value,” says Allen E. Smith, Alaska regional director of the Wilderness Society. “But there’s still a lot of oil out there--oil in the water, oil on the beaches, oil under the beaches, oil in the animals . . . . I think they’re going to have to come back for a number of years.”

Either way, 1991 is likely to be anticlimactic on the beaches.

From a high of 11,332 cleanup workers in 1989, Exxon fielded only 1,030 in 1990. The summer 1989 cleanup costs were fixed by the company at $2 billion. This year added a mere $200 million. Rather than emphasizing tedious rock washing and hot-water scouring as occurred on beaches in 1989, this year Exxon spent more effort spreading fertilizer to assist natural oil-eating microbes.

This fall, Exxon began auctioning off much of its cleanup equipment, including 500 small boats and 12,000 rain suits and 50 miles of chain, enough in total to fill three warehouses and 50 acres of storage lot.

Company headquarters in Anchorage took on the atmosphere of a staging camp during the Vietnam War, with employees counting the days, the hours, until they can return home, many to Texas. There has been an awards ceremony and countless emotional goodbys. A book of recipes and anecdotes of oil spill workers was published for employees. Its title: “The Two Billion Dollar Cookbook.” A bulletin reminds workers they must undergo a debriefing with Exxon lawyers before leaving the state.

That’s because a colossal legal battle is building. Exxon has been charged with criminal acts in connection with the grounding, and some 160 civil suits have been filed seeking damages. At a recent court hearing, 150 lawyers were in attendance.

Michael F. Smith, Exxon’s Alaska area attorney, guesses it will take until 1995 to complete depositions and exchange information in the discovery process. “That’s five years just to trade paper,” he says.

This is a matter of concern for all Americans who are not party to the suits but who would like to know more than the eye can tell about the condition of the environment of Prince William Sound. Much of that scientific information is being withheld by one side or the other in preparation for the litigation.

Discussions are under way on a proposal to jointly file all scientific data in a library open to the public. Failing that, however, the nation could be in the maddening position of having to wait interminably.

What is known leads Exxon and some others to express optimism. The pink salmon catch in the sound this year exceeded the past record volume by almost 50%. This is significant because these were juvenile fish that swam through the sound at the height of the spill. An Exxon-released study conducted by Battelle Ocean Sciences concluded it is “extremely unlikely” the residual oil will have any adverse effect on animals living below the surface of the water.

Environmentalists warn that it is way too early to relax. They note a study that unexpectedly found hydrocarbons in deep dwelling bottom fish, and point to documented cases of contaminated shellfish. State scientists have found disturbing abnormalities in herring larvae. Some have speculated that the pink salmon thrived only because tens of thousands of predator birds were killed.

Additionally, conservationists worry that so little has been gained politically even after so much was lost environmentally.

In Anchorage, noted environmentalist Art Davidson, author of the book “In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez,” shakes his head in frustration. In everything from killed animals to cold cash, the risk and cost of large-scale oil development has been shockingly demonstrated.

But, he adds, there has been virtually no progress toward a national energy policy to reduce oil consumption. In fact, much of official Alaska is busy lobbying to open yet another North Slope wilderness area to drilling. And even as Exxon cleanup workers head home, Alaskans are notified that this year’s state dividend check will be about $900--each man, woman and child’s share of oil royalties.

“Diffused as it may be, the ultimate responsibility for problems like the Alaska oil spill lies with industry’s silent partners--the consumers,” Davidson says, echoing a theme of his book. And he recalls a lesson that some tried to pass along at the height of the cleanup. “It wasn’t Hazelwood’s driving but the driving of a hundred million Americans that put the tanker on the reef.”

Times researcher Doug Conner contributed to this story.