EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez grounded in Prince William Sound, releasing 11 million gallons of oil. The oil eventually spread over 10,000 square miles and oiled over 1,500 miles of Alaska's coastline, killing more wildlife than any other spill in history.
With litigation a driving factor, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on post-spill studies by the state and federal governments and Exxon. The scientists have presented virtually opposite findings of spill studies. In general, government studies show long-term damage in a variety of species and delayed ecosystem recovery, while Exxon studies conclude there is virtually no long-term damage and that there is rapid ecosystem recovery.
This report, "Sound Truth," addresses three main issues:
1) it compares key studies on natural resources conducted and presented by government and Exxon scientists by examining methodology, statistics, results, discussion and conclusions of key studies;
2) it presents a five-year status of injury to and recovery of natural and human resources in Prince William Sound; and
3) it identifies the underlying weaknesses in the scientific and regulatory processes that compromised the quality of spill research and recommends changes for the future.
SECTION ONE:
COMPARISON OF KEY EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL STUDIES
Key studies were identified as ones that were central to the data base (chemistry), or understanding overall ecosystem injury and recovery (intertidal and bird), or that monitored effects in species that are cornerstones in the ecosystem and economy of local communities (salmon and herring). A total of 32 studies are compared--20 government and 12 Exxon studies.
The analysis of key studies found that Exxon's studies were consistently biased in that they underestimated biological injury and overstated recovery. The sources of bias in these studies included such problems as no or selective reporting of data, inappropriate pooling of samples, pseudo-replication, inherent inability to detect a difference (low signal-to-noise ratio), implausible results, invalid statistics, and prejudiced (biased) presentation of study findings. Some of the studies (e.g. seawater chemistry, beach communities) were so seriously flawed as to result in data completely at variance with all other known reports.
Exxon's studies seem to demonstrate a systemic bias wherein a large and substantial sampling effort was expended, but the effort seems to be intentionally directed as "proving" there was no effect from the spill. This is indicated in such study design parameters as ignoring the use of mussels as indicators of water quality, generic definition of "oiled" beaches, inappropriate control sites, small sample size, and lack of long-term studies of chronic effects. Exxon's enormous outstanding liability underscores the problem of achieving neutral, unbiased results with litigation-driven studies.
SECTION TWO:
FIVE-YEAR STATUS OF RECOVERY IN PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND
Because Exxon's studies were designed to support their position of minimal long-term effects, Exxon's data contribute little to understanding the overall effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the ecosystem.
The government data are also not without faults, the central one being that many of the studies were designed to assess injury and to quantify recovery, i.e. the studies assumed resources were injured by the spill. However, the results and conclusions of the key studies were supported by the data, and the data were reported so that the results could be verified.
An overview of the government research to date reveals that, five years after the spill, recovery is patchy and incomplete with long-term effects occurring predominantly in species that use the intertidal zone to feed or breed. Harlequin ducks and oystercatchers in western Prince William Sound are failing to reproduce: populations were down to 11% and 42% of the pre-spill levels, respectively. Mortalities of weanling sea otters are abnormally high, and river otters are of poor body condition. All of these organisms depend on mussels for a principal part of their diets, and the intertidal mussel beds in western Prince William Sound remain heavily contaminated with Exxon Valdez oil. Scientific evidence of reproductive impairment from exposure to oil is only recently available for herring and pink salmon.
These persistent biological effects in birds, mammals, and fish are strong evidence that oil contaminants are still present in the environment. The dramatic reductions in certain populations of marine mammals, birds, and fish caused by the oil spill have seriously altered the structure, composition, and dynamic interrelationships in the affected coastal ecosystem. Indirect "ripple" effects are just starting to appear. The time required for full recovery is unknown, but may take decades.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill had an extraordinary destabilizing effect on human communities. The predominantly subsistence culture in Native villages and subsistence lifestyle in non-native coastal communities is an intricate web of behaviors and social interactions that give a sense of worth to individuals, strength to families, and structure to society. All are bonded through one central commonality: the sharing of natural resources.
Natural resource communities are particularly vulnerable to technological disasters. Injury to natural resources disrupts the pattern of sharing that forms the critical link between the community and the environment, and among the community members. Oil contamination of natural resources (food) may leave buildings and boats untouched, but it cripples the human mind with uncertainty, ambiguity, and despair. These are the fears that disturb the dreams of adults and children by night, and tear apart communities by day.
Studies have found dramatic increases in post-spill general anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, drinking, drug use, domestic violence, conflict among friends, and damaged family ties. Emotional trauma is again on the increase in coastal communities of Prince William Sound as spill-induced, long-term damages are manifested as pink salmon and herring run failures.
Also the time-consuming and delayed litigation with respect to the Exxon Valdez oil spill continues to exacerbate social problems five years after the tanker grounding. The contention, delay, uncertainty, and frustration generated by litigation have been almost as destructive as the disaster itself, and contribute to the long-term stresses and continuing social upheaval.
The general consensus throughout the spill-impacted region is that the people and communities will recover when the environment has fully recovered.
SECTION THREE:
IDENTIFICATION OF UNDERLYING WEAKNESSES IN SCIENTIFIC AND REGULATORY PROCESSES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE
Something went very wrong with "science" in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill as illustrated by the extreme differences in key studies between government and industry. These differences are symptomatic of underlying problems with the research and regulatory processes that were designed to produce quality science.
After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, as in the case of other large oil spills, the federal and state trustees for natural resources and the spiller, Exxon, designed and initiated studies to collect data to support their pre-conceived positions. The government position was that resources were injured, and studies were designed to determine the nature of those injuries. Exxon held that resources may have been injured, but that recovery was rapid, and studies were designed to minimize long-term damages and hence, the corporation's liability. Government and Exxon research findings were touted as "science" and were forced upon the scientific community to be treated as "science."
Part of the problem is that the scientific community is not prepared to handle studies that are based on preconceptions, i.e. "spill science." Another part of the problem is that federal laws governing spill research simply do not work for catastrophic spills with minimal baseline data, because of the disproportionately large number of damage assessment studies needed for litigation and classified as confidential.
It is imperative that the scientific community, Congress, and the state and federal governments take steps to improve the quality of science that becomes part of the public domain, particularly studies undertaken in the aftermath of an oil spill.
CONCLUSIONS
1) Oil spill response, damage, and restoration research should be peer-reviewed during design and prior to publication, and should be competitively bid to ensure high quality, cost-effective research.
2) Congress should require cooperative research during spill response and restoration. The laws governing oil spill response should include, in regulation, provisions for
a mandatory agreement by all parties on a comprehensive research plan and cooperative studies, including procedures for peer review, quality control program, splitting samples, chain of custody, and data reporting; and
a mandatory agreement by all parties that public presentation and/or publication of the cooperative studies, and admissibility of the studies and data in court, are contingent upon adhering to the procedures established for these studies.
3) An Alaska State Trustee for Natural Resources should be appointed immediately: given the magnitude of both oil development and the natural resources at risk, this should be a dedicated position within the Department of Fish and Game, funded through the 470 Fund.
4) Federal and state trustees for natural resources should work cooperatively with the public (as required by Oil Pollution Act of 1990) to develop comprehensive baseline monitoring programs for these different areas, incorporating the data on long-term effects from the Exxon Valdez spill. A comprehensive baseline monitoring program should be completed prior to approval of oil and gas lease sales.
5) The Exxon Valdez oil spill Trustee internal review process should be restructured so that senior authors send their papers out to the scientific community for peer review before submission either as a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) final report or to a journal for publication.
In conclusion, in any oil spill, the interests of governments, industry, and private plaintiffs must not be allowed to supersede the responsibility of governments to uphold the public trust in stewardship of natural resources. The public trust can only be upheld through maximizing public access to spill response, damage, and restoration research. The public has a right-to-know the full environmental impacts of industrial accidents that damage public resources: without this information, received in a timely manner, the public is ill-prepared to press for social changes needed to prevent oil spills in the first place.