A Wild Ride: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and the Economy of Prince William Sound

Melissa Hanson

When the safety bar is lowered and the seat belt is tightened, many rollercoaster passengers have no idea what they are about to experience. Excitement and anticipation mount as the coaster slowly creeps ever upward along the narrow track. Then there is the fleeting moment when the entire machine momentarily pauses, enjoying a panoramic view from the crest. This does not last long, however, as the cars begin to careen downwards, continually gaining speed. The rollercoaster whips its passengers around several more sharp curves before screeching to a halt at the ride’s end. After a moment’s rest, the rollercoaster is off again, carrying a new load of unsuspecting passengers.

Alaska’s economy has a followed a path oddly similar to that of a rollercoaster. Its reliance on natural resources as its economic livelihood is the cause of this similarity. This dependence quickly leads to what is called a boom-bust economy. As one resource is exploited, the economy moves up and up and up. A peak of great prosperity, or “boom,” is attained only to be followed by an economic tumble, or “bust,” resulting from diminishing resources. This downward spiral continues much like the rollercoaster. Once the resource has been depleted, the economy comes to a screeching halt before jumping on the wild ride again with a new natural resource. When any disruption compromises the value of Alaska’s natural resources, the economy is shaken. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was most certainly a disruption. March 24, 1989 was the beginning of a wild ride for the economy of Prince William Sound. It is a ride which will not soon be forgotten.

Over the past 250 years, Alaska’s economic history has been sprinkled with the boom-and-bust cycles of natural resource exploitation. This rollercoaster-like economy began when animal pelts, like the sea otter’s, became highly sought after. Russian fur traders and other Europeans decimated the otter population along with other animals and sea creatures. When gold was discovered years later, this was the boom resource that the Alaskan economy needed to start a new upward cycle. Copper and coal were also extracted which facilitated the construction of railroads and other infrastructure to transport the minerals. Currently, oil is the latest boom resource that the Alaskan economy is enjoying. From all of this, a pattern has emerged that Alaska “has been dependent on one or two or at most three economic activities…When one suffers or declines this can produce a general economic recession” (Thomas, 1999: 19). The Alaskan village of Cordova, in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, is a textbook case of this.

Cordova is “as close as one can get to a ‘mono’ economy in Alaska” (Fried and Stinson, 1989: 2). This community, home to just under 2,500 people, lives by the goodness of the ocean. Commercial fishing is the heart, soul, and life blood of Cordova. In fact, “commercial fishing and its ancillary processing activities currently provide more than 50 percent of all employment in Cordova” (Cohen, 1993: 128). This can be witnessed first-hand in the city’s harbor where every dock is home to a fishing boat equipped with all it needs to reel in the day’s catch. Unfortunately, it was also the commercial fishing industry that was hit the hardest by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

1989 should have been a record-breaking year for the commercial fishing industry. It was predicted that over 40 million salmon would be harvested from Prince William Sound, and market prices were at an all time high. However, the reality told a much more solemn story. The spilling of 11 million gallons of crude oil quickly polluted an invaluable resource. State officials, fearing stiff consumer reactions if tainted seafood was delivered to retail food stores, adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ policy to prevent the harvest of fish potentially exposed to oil. This decision led to the closure of several fisheries for the entire 1989 season while other fishing jurisdictions were permitted to stay open subject to vigilant monitoring for the presence of oil. (Cohen, 1997: 145)

The closing of the 1989 fishing season due to oil contamination caused many Cordovans to lose an entire year’s income. The fact that fishermen had such high expectations for the 1989 season made the “fishery closures and other spill effects even more disruptive” (EVOSTC, 2002: 23). Commercial fishermen continue to face these disruptions from the oil spill as the industry has yet to return to its pre-spill status.

It should be noted, however, that the Exxon Valdez oil spill is not the sole factor in this lack of recovery. New international competition from fisheries in Norway and Chile has had an “unsettling effect on commercial fishers in Alaska” since the oil spill (Cohen, 1997: 153). Low market prices have also been plaguing fishermen for years. However, the oil spill can be cited as the cause for much of the damage done to the commercial fishing industry.

To Cordovans, the closure of the 1989 fishing season was shattering. With the basis of their economy devastated, fishermen had no reliable source of income. Many turned to Exxon for compensation of lost wages. In 1989, Exxon paid $300 million to fishermen who could provide proof of fishing wages lost in the aftermath of the spill. In 1994, Exxon paid again. This time the fishermen received $287 million for compensatory damages. Some, however, received far greater amounts than others.

The glitter of earning a lucrative $3,500 per day was enough of a reason for many fishermen to lease their boats to Exxon for cleanup work. “Exxon began signing contracts with fishermen. Amazement spread at how much the oil company was paying” (Wohlforth, 1989: A1). Still others joined the Exxon cleanup army in order to take advantage of the $16.69/hour wages. On May 21, 1989, the Anchorage Daily News reported that “the shock waves of this massive recruitment effort have spread across the state, rippling through southcentral coastal communities…From Cordova, Valdez, Seward, Kenai, and Kodiak, more than 1,400 residents have joined the oil spill cleanup” (Bernton, 1989a: C1). This rush of available jobs helped to bring statewide unemployment to its lowest level for April in at least 10 years (Bernton, 1989a: C1). Final numbers indicate that Exxon hired some 11,000 workers for its cleanup forces. Although low unemployment may sound appealing, it had serious ramifications for the economy of Prince William Sound.

Cordova was hit especially hard as its businesses were crippled by labor shortages. The city lost nearly one-fifth of its labor force to the cleanup effort. Employers were forced to increase their wages in hopes of enticing their employees to stay in their local jobs. However, no one wanted to remain in a $5/hour job when there were big cleanup bucks to be made. Those businesses which were short staffed had to pay overtime and go without needed employment (Kenner, 2000: 65). There was no way that small businesses could compete with the salaries offered by Exxon. Many entrepreneurs were forced to do as Jeff Bailey did. Owner of the Killer Whale Café in Cordova, Bailey decided to shut down in the summer of 1989, saying that he would perhaps open up again next year, “if things calm down” (Bernton, 1989a: C1).

The influx of cleanup money also created the unique problem of “spillionaires.” These were workers who formerly earned an average of $2,308 a month and were now raking in $1,800 a week (Fried and Stinson, 1989: 6). This caused rifts in communities between people who accepted Exxon’s money and those who did not. A Cordova fisherman summed up the situation best when he said, “This damn town has been smeared with money” (Keeble, 1999: 260). Kelley Weaverling, a resident of Cordova, will admit that the months following the oil spill were a “wild time” that brought out the best and the worst in everything (Weaverling, 2004). The growing gap in Cordova between the rich and the poor “evinced envy, bitterness, and isolation…it…threatened to undo the old solidarity and split the town in half” (Keeble, 1999: 265-6). It was a tumultuous ride not only for the economy of Prince William Sound, but for its people as well.

All told, Exxon poured over $2 billion into the cleanup effort of the Sound. This ultimately made commercial fishing more competitive. People who worked on the Exxon cleanup team could afford improvements to their boats that their previous incomes otherwise would not have permitted. Cordovans say this permanently affected the fishery by making it more competitive and more costly to stay competitive (Kenner, 2000: 53). Those who chose not to participate in the cleanup found it difficult to compete against newer boats and gear funded by Exxon’s money. Spillionaires around Prince William Sound could be found thanking Joe Hazelwood for running aground and causing the spill that purchased their new boats; but, many would soon find it difficult to continue to finance their new equipment. With the fishery closures of 1989 and subsequent below normal returns, bankruptcy for some was just around the corner.

Salmon eggs which had been fertilized before the oil spill in 1988 and released as fry in 1989, “produced the largest return on record…This immediately resulted in a barrage of Exxon press releases and advertisements claiming that the oil spill had hardly damaged the ecosystem” (Keeble, 1999: 271). However, in August of 1992, the pink salmon population nearly collapsed, as returns were a third of what had been expected. Decreases in numbers were only part of the story; “the fish were small, behaved erratically, and arrived three weeks late, and were therefore too advanced in their spawning cycle…to be of value” (Keeble, 1999: 271). This is obviously a much different story than what Exxon fed to the press of record returns and thriving populations.

Fishermen took another blow in 1993 when the Pacific herring population unexpectedly crashed. Like the pink salmon, this problem did not emerge until later because the 1989 to 1992 populations of herring had been fertilized before the oil spill. Herring spawn on a four year cycle, so when the 1989 return (the first to be affected by the oil spill) began to spawn in 1993, the population began to diminish. As a result, fishing was inhibited in 1993, and the 1994-96 herring seasons were closed. A limited fishery opened in 1997, but “generally herring returns remain quite weak compared to pre-oil spill years” (Keeble, 1999: 271). The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council (EVOSTC), in its 2002 Update on Injured Resources and Services, labeled commercial fishing as “in the process of recovering from the effects of the spill” (23). Part of the reason for the continued struggle in commercial fishing is the effects of lingering oil. Laboratory investigations after the 1993 crash have shown that “exposure to very low concentrations of Exxon Valdez oil can compromise the immune systems of adult herring and lead to expression of the viral disease” (EVOSTC, 2004a). As the Pacific herring commercial harvest has remained closed since 1998 and other commercially important fish species and opportunities to catch them have not yet recovered, many fishermen are seeking $4.5 billion in punitive damages.

On September 16, 1994, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska awarded the victims of the spill $5 billion in punitive damages. Exxon appealed this ruling, and in November of 2001, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a reduction in the punitive damages amount. Judge Holland reinstated the award at $4 billion in December 2002, but in 2003, he was asked again to reconsider the amount. On January 28, 2004, Holland decided that a punitive damages award of $4.5 billion plus $2.25 billion in interest was in agreement with Supreme Court authority. Exxon has yet to pay a dime of the punitive settlement, and it continues to appeal the decision. What angers the 30,000 fishermen, Natives, business owners, and others who were awarded the $5 billion judgment is that, for Exxon, apparently, delay pays…Exxon is earning $90,000 an hour, about $2 million a day or nearly $800 million a year, on the same $5 billion as long as the case drags on and the money stays in its coffers. As it stands now, if the appeals linger a couple more years, Exxon will have earned enough in interest alone to pay the $5 billion plus the accrued interest (Phillips, 1998: A1).

If and when Exxon finally pays the punitive damages award, some believe there will be a reemergence of the destabilization seen after the initial infusion of Exxon cleanup money. Alaska could see “a whole new crop of millionaires” (Phillips, 1996: B1). Economically speaking, the commercial fishermen and their attorneys would receive the most reward. They would divide around $3 billion, the majority of which would go to the salmon fishermen. In Prince William Sound, the 850 salmon fishermen would share $700 million averaging out to $850,000 apiece (Phillips, 1996: B1). While this money could be the bandage needed for the wounded fishing economies, the animosity that was felt during the cleanup of the oil spill may resurface when some fishermen are awarded a share of the punitive award and others are left out. Until the marine resources upon which the fishermen of Prince William Sound depend are fully recovered, the Exxon Valdez oil spill will continue to resonate throughout this economic sector.

Another area that the spill continues to affect economically is subsistence. Roy Totemoff, a resident and Alaska Native from the village of Tatitlek, can attest to the fact that the failing of the herring was a life-changing event. A fisherman before the spill, Totemoff was forced to sell his boat and fishing permit at a huge loss because the fish were not there anymore. To many subsistence villages like Tatitlek, the disappearance of the herring meant that other food sources, such as the harbor seal and harlequin duck, left the area looking for more abundant numbers of fish. Using the resources of the land and sea for survival is the basis of a subsistence economy. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground and decimated those resources, subsistence users were forced to conform to a more cash-based economy as it became harder and harder to find the necessities needed for survival. One Native resident of Chenega Bay commented on the increasingly difficult task of gathering resources:

Seals are scarce. When you go out on a boat, you seldom see seals or sea lions like before. Man, the water is just dead. Along the eighteen miles of Knight Island where we used to harvest, I didn’t see even one. Now we have to go thirty miles by boat to find seals. We used to get them less than two miles away from the village (Hoffman and Oliver-Smith, 2002: 175).

The same problem is prevalent in Tatitlek as Totemoff mentioned the lack of the once abundant harlequin duck. With subsistence resources depleted, the villagers had no choice but to look for substitutes to supplement their diets (Totemoff, 2004).

After the spill, Exxon shipped boxes of pre-packaged food to the Native villages to replace the subsistence food sources that were destroyed. Today, this type of sustenance is becoming more and more common in Native villages which were once solely dependent on subsistence. Totemoff admitted that with subsistence living becoming increasingly difficult, the Natives are coming to rely more heavily upon the pre-packaged foods like those first delivered by Exxon. This change in diet is a culture shock to many village elders who remember a time when all of their food came from the wild. Hard as some may try, there is no monetary value that can be placed on this change in culture. Although it’s not considered a traditional economy, subsistence is a reality for many Alaskans who use the resources of the land as their livelihood. The Exxon Valdez oil spill sent these natural resources on a downward spiral from which the subsistence economy is still trying to recover.

In some ways, however, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was economically beneficial for the Alaska Natives. In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) allowed Native villages to select 44 million acres of public land and set up corporations to “manage those lands and provide economic benefits for their Native shareholders” (EVOSTC, 2004b: 13). In order to make their land selections economically successful, the corporations did what was to be expected; they exploited the natural resources of the land. These acres contain some of the finest timber tracts in Alaska, and many corporations chose to clear cut the land to make a profit. When the $900 million civil settlement was reached with Exxon in 1991, the Trustee Council, formed to oversee the allocation of the settlement money, set aside nearly 60% of the available settlement funds, or $406.2 million, for habitat protection and land acquisition. What this meant for Native Corporations is that they were paid to leave their lands untouched. Because of the settlement money, the Corporations could continue to be economically sound without compromising the value of the area’s natural resources. This was one unexpected positive outcome for Alaska Natives who felt that their only way to maintain economic prosperity was through natural resource extraction.

If the natural resource-dependent economies of Cordova and Tatitlek represented the downward plummet of the economic rollercoaster, then Valdez represented the opposite. When compared to the other economies of Prince William Sound affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, that of Valdez is the most diverse. It relies on employment by the government, the transportation of oil, tourism, and fishing (Fried and Stinson, 1989: 2). As Valdez’s economy does not depend on simply one resource, this diversity helped to lessen the long-term impacts of the spill. In the short-term, however, Valdez’s economy received a giant boost.

After the spill, Valdez became the latest boom town as money cascaded in. Known as the “little Switzerland of Alaska,” Valdez was the logistics center of the spill, and people from all over bombarded the town. At the airport, “the runway was lined with military helicopters, and flights passed in and out on top of one another…what had once been a schedule of 8 to 10 flights a day had gone up as high as 600” (Keeble, 1999: 66). There were people from every walk of life imaginable descending upon this town. Within two weeks, the population of Valdez would double from the influx of “scientists, consultants, and electricians, plumbers, carpenters, a heavy dose of press from all over the world, bureaucrats, politicians, insurance adjusters, scam artists, and scavengers” (Keeble, 1999: 66). At the height of the cleanup effort, Valdez was home to an estimated 12,000 people. There was a continuous line at the Valdez Job Service which had dispatched 2,447 workers within the first weeks of the spill (Fried and Stinson, 1989: 6). This flood of transient workers filled every available hotel room, and “residents began offering their couches, hideabeds, and spare rooms for $30 to $60 a night” (Pulliam, 1989: H1). Some paid even loftier prices of “over $100 a night to sleep in a living room in the company of two or three others, and the landlords…wanted to be paid in hard cash” (Keeble, 1999: 66-7). The immediate aftermath of the spill was a time of great prosperity; community revenues increased by approximately 38% in 1989 from the cleanup effort. Certain areas, though, experienced economic setbacks due to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

In communities, response to the spill and cleanup demanded efforts that stretched their social and governmental resources beyond capacity. The large influx of transient workers to Valdez often led to chaos and confusion within the community. The Anchorage Daily News reported a “dramatic increase in bar fights, thefts, and speeders” (Pulliam, 1989: H1). In Valdez, the police chief and his crew of 18 officers had to begin working double shifts after the oil spill, and the department’s overtime budget of $25,000 was spent within two weeks. Energy and funds that the city governments would regularly use to proceed with normal life were bounded by the uncertainties of the future. All this put a strain on the Sound’s already delicate economy. And, at the same time, Alaska “was not economically situated to maximize its gains from the accident” (Cohen, 1997: 154).

Alaska’s economy has a few inherent problems that caused it to slide into an economic decline in the years following the oil spill. One of those problems is that Alaska has always had a quite porous economy, meaning that money filters out of the local Alaskan communities to outside regions (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, 2001: 97). There are few resources allotted to the manufacturing of consumer goods, so many Alaskans rely heavily upon the purchase of imported goods. What this meant for Alaska economically after the spill was that cleanup wages did not stay in the local communities for additional spending. For example, if a resident chose to purchase a new boat with his additional oil spill earnings, money flowed out of Alaska because the boat had been manufactured elsewhere. If Alaska had the capabilities to produce a greater variety of consumer goods, more cleanup earnings would have been retained locally.

Another reason for the economic slump after the dissipation of spill proceeds was the large number of transient workers who had been attracted to the Prince William Sound area by the substantial wages that could be earned. When there was no more work to be done, these laborers returned to their homes bringing their money back with them. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was an effective illumination of the turbulent dangers of a natural resource dependent economy, and it made it obvious that alternative sources of revenue needed to be found to ensure future economic prosperity.

Economic diversity is the only way Alaska will escape its intrinsic boom-bust cycle. If the economy is no longer at the mercy of the fruits of nature, the state will be able to depend on a much steadier source of income. With diversity, if one economic venture fails, there are numerous others upon which to fall back, ensuring a healthy financial outlook. Tourism is perhaps one of the best hopes in Alaska’s search for economic diversity. Like commercial fishing, this industry was not immune to the damaging effects of the oil spill.

It’s estimated that there was an 8% decrease in visitor spending in southcentral Alaska and a 35% decrease in southwest Alaska, the two areas hit hardest by the spill. This resulted in an estimated loss of $19 million in visitor spending. 59% of businesses in the most spill-affected areas reported spill-related cancellations, amounting to a loss of around 9,400 visitors for the 1989 summer season. Lack of available visitor services like hotel rooms and transportation, a fear for health and safety, and the images of oiled beaches and animals were all reasons for the decline in tourism following the oil spill. Activities like kayaking trips and whale-watching lost their appeal because of oiled water. Fishing charters decreased because of a lack of boats and a fear of contamination (An Assessment of the Impact, 1990: 95). The prolonged media coverage of the event cemented in potential visitors’ minds an image of a pristine environment now tarnished with the poisons of 11 million gallons of crude oil. One motor tourist quoted in the Anchorage Daily News expressed the sentiments of many travelers when he wrote, “we’ll have to go elsewhere to see unspoiled northern beauty” (Bernton, 1989b: D1). Tourism suffered a decline just like Alaska’s natural resources, but this industry has one key difference; it can and did bounce back.

As soon as the media attention died down, people forgot about the spill. Some even argue that the spill coverage worked to increase the awareness of Alaska and made more people eager to visit the state. The EVOSTC cites data from the summer of 2001 indicating that over 1.2 million visitors sojourned to Alaska compared to approximately 600,000 visitors in the summer of 1989. Data from 1989 to 1997 also shows that the number of sportfishers in Prince William Sound increased by 65% (EVOSTC, 2002: 25).

Unlike natural resources, tourism sells itself. It doesn’t have to be subjected to the environmentally damaging practices of extraction, and it is not dependent upon the latest market prices. Rather, prices within Alaska can determine the going rate for tourism services. The growth of tourism would allow Alaska to earn money off the attractions that it already has. Riki Ott suggests that the state impose a viewshed tax. With the ever-increasing numbers of cruise ships and visitors entering the Alaskan wilderness, Ott proposed that these people pay for the opportunity to view these spectacular landscapes (Ott, 2004). This would keep more money in the state, unlike natural resource extraction. This practice results in the exportation of mainly raw materials, and because Alaska is not equipped with the facilities to manufacture a complete product, a lot of money is lost to outside sources which are able to do this. If Alaska and the nation would choose to value the environment over development, then the economy would no longer be faced with the ups and downs of natural resource exploitation, and the entire world would continue to have the opportunity to enjoy Alaska in all its natural splendor.

The problem, however, is that development has taken precedence over environmental conservation. Evidence of this can be seen in the economic impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the oil industry. In 2003, after taxes, ExxonMobil netted a staggering $21.5 billion in revenue making it the most profitable company on the Fortune 500’s list. This stands in stark contrast to the local claimants of the punitive damage award who are hoping to recapture a portion of what they have lost in the past fifteen years. ExxonMobil has more than made up for what it paid in the oil spill. In fact, international prices per barrel of crude oil have hit an all time high of $41.85. This means huge profits for the state of Alaska where around one million barrels of oil daily flow through the Trans Alaska Pipeline’s southern terminus in Valdez. Residents of Alaska even benefit economically from the nation’s insatiable thirst for oil when they receive their annual Permanent Fund Dividend check; without the oil revenues, Alaskans wouldn’t have that extra money in their pockets each year. Even if the oil industry were to face economic problems, these additional costs would just be passed on to the consumer at the gas pump. Big oil never has to worry about bankruptcy because the nation is so grossly obsessed with oil. The only way to change this grim reality is for consumers to demand transformations in the way resources are used.

The realization of this fact is necessary more so in Alaska than anywhere else in the nation because of the nature of its economy. Alaska’s history of an economy dependent on the state’s natural resources has left a legacy of unhealthy economic booms and busts. When Alaska’s resources are regarded in a purely economic sense, all that will be seen are dollar signs, not the incalculable value of a pristine wilderness. That was what happened with the Exxon Valdez oil spill; people were blinded by the glimmer of a golden dollar sign, and the oil industry was allowed to become complacent in order to keep its stockholders happy. If Exxon had burdened itself with the few extra costs involved in ensuring a safer transportation of oil, it would not have ended up with the much higher costs of financing an oil spill cleanup. The economic shockwaves of the Exxon Valdez oil spill continue to reverberate throughout many areas of Prince William Sound today.

The Pacific herring, a once sustainable resource in Prince William Sound, has failed to return from its 1993 population collapse. The commercial fishermen can no longer depend on predictable returns as they were able to before the spill. Decreasing size and abnormalities from exposure to even low concentrations of oil have been factors in the lack of recovery to the Pacific herring fishery. Salmon suffered similar losses after the oil spill in what was to be a record-breaking year. The commercial fishing industry paid dearly in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez. Fifteen years later it still continues to struggle.

The subsistence economy is another area in which recovery has yet to take place. The ecological damages of the spill have made subsistence living more and more difficult for Alaska Native communities. Reduced availability of fish and wildlife and health concerns of eating oiled fish plagued the villagers who relied on these resources as their main source of food. The Exxon Valdez oil spill caused the disruption of a traditional lifestyle for which no monetary value can be assigned. As the years have passed, Native villages have had to fight harder and harder to preserve their culture in the face of a changing economy.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill changed a lot of things for a lot of people. Now, perhaps, it is time for the rest of the nation to make some changes. The events of that fateful Good Friday in 1989 cannot be blamed solely on Captain Joseph Hazelwood, or Exxon, or Alyeska, or any other myriad of organizations involved in the spill. The blame needs to be put on every consumer who fills up his car with gasoline. Greenpeace explained it well with an ad published in its bimonthly magazine; a caption placed over a picture of Joe Hazelwood read, “It wasn’t his driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours” (Bishop, 1989: A1). America needs to wake up to the fact that it is nation obsessed with oil. It is an obsession which is destroying some of the country’s most unique and pristine environments. Having seen the wild beauty of Alaska for myself, I can only hope that it will still be around for my children to experience.

My trip to the “last frontier” made me realize that Alaska’s economy exists today because of the way many Americans choose to live their lives. The value of development over the conservation of the environment has allowed Alaska’s economy to be dominated by the exploitation of its natural resources. However, this is not the way to obtain dependable economic growth. The Exxon Valdez oil spill made it clear what happens to the economy when a disaster ravages natural resources. And, what is going to happen when the resources run out? I agree with Riki Ott who stresses the need to manage the economy “as if life matters” (Ott, 2004). Social, economic, and environmental aspects all need to be considered in order to have a healthy economy. As a nation, we are only thinking in terms of dollars and cents. The rolling back of environmental standards, the increasing purchases of SUVs, and the current disregard for environmental preservation has made it quite obvious what the majority of our society values. These practices need to quickly change if Alaska’s wilderness is to remain intact through the next century. Luckily there are some dedicated, incredible individuals who are committed to stopping the detrimental games that corporate America is playing with our fragile ecosystem. I was inspired by the immense changes this handful of people has brought about. I know that if each one of us were infused with only a fraction of their passion, our impact would be enormous.

Works Cited

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Bernton, Hal. 1989a. “Help Wanted,” Anchorage Daily News, May 21: C1.

Bernton, Hal. 1989b. “Oil Spill Stains State Tourism Future,” Anchorage Daily News, April 28: D1.

Bishop, Sam. 1989. “Oil Spill Opens Wallets,” Anchorage Daily News, August 27: A1.

Cohen, Maurie J. 1993. Economic Aspects of Technological Accidents: An Evaluation of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Southcentral Alaska. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania.

Cohen, Maurie J., Duane A. Gill, and Steven J. Picou. 1997. The Exxon Valdez Disaster: Readings on a Modern SocialProblem. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. 2004a. “Pacific Herring.” http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/status_herring.html. (May 20, 2004).

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. 2004b. Then and Now – A Message of Hope: 15th Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Anchorage, Alaska: EVOSTC.

Fried, Neal, and Holly Stinson. 1989. Prince William Sound: Five Economies in Turm(oil). Juneau, Alaska: Alaska Department of Labor.

Hoffman, Susanna M., and Anthony Oliver-Smith. 2002. Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research.

Keeble, John. 1999. Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound. Tenth Anniversary Edition. Spokane, Washington: Eastern Washington University Press.

Kenner, Philippa Coiley. 2000. Cordova and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Anchorage, Alaska: Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Ott, Riki. 2004. Personal Interview. Cordova, May 4.

Phillips, Natalie. 1998. “As Appeals Drag, Exxon Banks the Interest,” Anchorage Daily News, August 4: A1.

Phillips, Natalie. 1996. “Spillionaires,” Anchorage Daily News, March 17: B1.

Pulliam, Liz. 1989. “Spill Thrusts Valdez Into Economic Boom,” Anchorage Daily News, April 11: H1.

Thomas, Clive S. (ed.). 1999. Alaska Public Policy Issues: Background and Perspectives. Juneau, Alaska: The Denali Press.

Totemoff, Roy. 2004. Personal Interview. Tatitlek, May 11.

Weaverling, Kelley. 2004. Personal Interview. Cordova, May 5.

Wohlforth, Charles. 1989. “Wages of the Oil Spill Divide the Community of Cordova,” Anchorage Daily News, June 4: A1.

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