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Another report from Exxon Valdez case Federal judge expresses frustration at slow progress in resolving continuing liabilities from 1989 Prince William Sound oil spill Alan Bailey Petroleum News
A court case dating back to 1991 and relating to damages from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound has still not been resolved. In an Oct. 15 status report to the court, the federal government and the state of Alaska, parties in the case, said that work is still in progress on a restoration plan for dealing with oil remaining in the subsurface of beaches impacted by the spill and that the team working on the plan has not yet reached the point of being able to prepare an accurate cost estimate for any remaining remediation work.
Slow progress Federal District Court Judge H. Russel Holland responded tersely to the status report, saying that, while he understands that progress is being made on the plan, he cannot figure out how the work on the plan has yet to make a determination of whether further remediation work in the sound remains to be done. The restoration plan relates to a demand in 2006 from the federal and state governments for $92 million from ExxonMobil for habitat restoration in impacted beaches - the settlement with ExxonMobil for damages relating to the Exxon Valdez disaster contained a “reopener” clause allowing governments to ask for up to $100 million to pay for remediation of environmental damage not covered in the original damage settlement for the spill.
ExxonMobil has not yet paid on the $92-million demand. The restoration plan includes conducting studies to identify any remaining environmental damage and estimate the cost of dealing with this damage.
“Bluntly, the court does not understand why the Trustees are some eight years into their evaluation process without reaching some point of finality on whether there are or are not unknown injuries to the environment which might be the subject of the reopener provision of the consent decree,” Holland wrote in his response to the latest status report. “Perhaps in a further report the United States can provide the court with a better understanding of where the parties are in resolving a possible re-opener claim.”
The judge commented that the fact that two attorneys involved in the case have passed away since the case began provides a somber reflection on the case’s longevity.
Residual oil While ExxonMobil has maintained that the spill cleanup from Exxon Valdez has long been completed, environmental groups have argued that oil from the spill has been degrading at slower rates than expected and still lingers in the region. The governments involved in the lawsuit also say that oil remains, embedded in Prince William Sound beaches for example.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, an organization that has been following the Exxon Valdez claims saga, has pointed out that, under a statute of limitations arrangement, the reopener claim will expire in June 2016, enabling ExxonMobil to block any claim after that time.
“The governments’ glacial pace has neglected long-lingering damages to both Alaska’s environment and its economy. Further delays may threaten their ability to collect anything at all,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.
Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska professor who has been urging the court to force ExxonMobil to pay on the reopener claim, says that the government’s Exxon Valdez restoration fund still has $200 million that could also be used to act on findings from the restoration plan.
Six phases The Oct. 15 status report filed by the federal government and the state of Alaska says that the restoration plan involves six phases: locating lingering oil through field sampling and modeling techniques; identifying factors that have slowed the natural removal of the oil; identifying remediation techniques; the pilot testing of these techniques; evaluating remediation alternatives; and implementing the remediation options.
Progress has been made on the first four phases of the plan but the report on the results of test remediation, the fourth phase, has not yet been completed - the draft report is undergoing peer review, the status report says. The testing involved trying out a remediation technique at four sites in Prince William Sound and evaluating the possible use of that technique at other sites known to harbor lingering Exxon Valdez oil. The completion of phase four of the restoration plan will entail applying the learnings from the pilot testing to “all known and predicted oiled sites,” the status report says.
The additional phase four work will refine the size of the reopener claim against ExxonMobil by providing a more accurate cost estimate for dealing with lingering oil at specific sites, the status report says.
The status report also says that another report, a report into linkages between the distribution of lingering oil in Prince William Sound and the distribution of potentially impacted species, is still undergoing peer review but that progress on remediation testing is not impacted by that report.
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