Exxon's Response: Public Relations and Substance

Lucas Livingston

It was clear from the first few hours of the spill that Exxon was responsible for the damage. The company even claimed responsibility for the spill and the cleanup that would follow only a few hours after they were notified. What was not clear, however, was the plan Exxon was going to follow when cleaning up the spill and how long it was going to take to mount a cleanup and containment effort. The Exxon Valdez oil spill involved one of the largest, longest, and most difficult oil spill cleanup efforts. The public was constantly wondering why the spiller, Exxon, was in charge of the cleanup efforts. Not used to dealing with private companies the public found themselves dealing with Exxon instead of the government. It was a difficult and frustrating time for everyone. It was a public relations disaster for Exxon, especially after Joseph Hazelwood, the ship’s captain, admitted to having several alcoholic drinks before the accident. Hazelwood then left the bridge and left in charge his third mate who lacked the U.S. Coast Guard certification to pilot the ship. It turns out that Hazelwood had a history of alcohol abuse and Exxon was aware of this problem. The company was also criticized for waiting ten hours before using boom to contain the spill. There are still a few questions that remain after the spill. What did Exxon do to contain and clean up the oil and how did they deal with the press and the public?

Once the cleanup of the spill started, it was a very confusing and slow process. The Coast Guard, the Alaskan Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Exxon Corporation, and Alyeska Corporation emerged as the responders to the spill. The problem was who was in control of the cleanup. According to Trans Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS) lease, the oil companies are to remove and clean up any oil spilled from the pipeline or the Valdez terminal. The oil companies made Alyeska responsible for the response to any spill in Prince William Sound from operating oil tankers. Like the TAPS lease agreement, Alyeska was supposed to respond. As it turned out, Alyeska was unprepared and undersupplied to clean up a spill of this magnitude. Its response was slow and ineffective. Exxon emerged, partly by choice, as the main responder to the spill. After all, it was their tanker and their oil. They started right away mobilizing equipment and personnel to Prince William Sound to start containment and cleanup of the spill. Although they had money and technology, they were also not prepared for a spill of that magnitude. The cleanup and rehabilitation was a public relations nightmare for Exxon. The first Exxon personnel to arrive at the spill seemed deeply upset and willing to do anything to cleanup the spill. Slowly though, Exxon began to run its cleanup like a “corporation,” just trying to make the spill disappear quickly from the public’s eye, making their company look good.

Exxon: Paying for the Spill

According to ExxonMobil (Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999) it spent at least $2.23 billion on the cleanup. In 1991 Exxon paid $1.025 billion in a civil settlement with U.S. governments and State of Alaska (Trustee Council 2003). There was an out of court settlement in July 1994 for $20 billion paid to Native Organizations and certain villages damaged by the spill (Phillips, N. 1994).

In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded fishermen  $287 million and punitive damages for economic loss. The punitive damage award was originally set at $5 billion, but it now stands at $4.5 billion. ExxonMobil continues to challenge this payment. For a company that made $131 billion in after-tax profits since 1989, $4.5 billion is chump-change. Rick Steiner believes that ExxonMobil does not want to pay because the court decision will set a precedent for future spill cases, making the oil industry more responsible for their spills (Steiner 2004). In turn, ExxonMobil scientist Al Maki is questioning of how many times ExxonMobil is going to have to pay for the spill. He wonders where the line is drawn, if they pay the settlement, a new suit may develop and ExxonMobil will again have to pay. Dr. Maki believes that a great deal of this is driven by greed and the need for more money (Maki 2004). No decision has been reached and the settlement is still pending between the two parties.

Initial Response

After the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef, eleven million gallons of oil spilled into PWS. There was still forty million gallons of oil left on the ship. Frank Iarossi, president of the Exxon Shipping Company, was notified in Houston at 1:25 am Alaska time. He made a few phone calls to senior Exxon officials and he began to mobilize Exxon’s response. (Havelcock 1990a:16) Iarossi was one of the first Exxon officials to arrive at the scene of the spill in Prince William Sound. Safely removing the remaining forty million gallons of oil to prevent more oil from hitting the water and also to salvage the ship was Exxon’s first priority. By four o’clock in the morning, Exxon planned to use the Exxon Baton Rouge in the lightering(removing oil) process. (Havelcock 1990a:16-17) They ended up using three Exxon ships to lighten the Exxon Valdez: Exxon Baton Rouge, Exxon San Francisco, and Exxon New Orleans. Later that morning the Exxon Baton Rouge reported to the Coast Guard that it had 148,000 barrels of dirty ballast water in their storage tanks. The Coast Guard gave verbal approval to dump the ballast water. The dirty water reached Hinchinbrook Island, the water was so oily that Cordova residents believed it was oil from the Exxon Valdez spill (Havelcock Append 1990b: 4).  At six thirty that morning Exxon issued a press statement:

At five thirty of the evening of the first day of the spill Iarossi arrived on scene and set up camp in Valdez. Exxon personnel continued to arrive and their influence continued to grow. By the evening of day two of the spill, Exxon had completely taken control over the spill response. Within four days of the spill Exxon had moved 274 tons of the spill cleanup equipment to Valdez. (Townsend 1989: 171)

Exxon officials quickly learned that the spill was too big for even them to handle quickly and quietly. Not long after the spill the public started becoming very confused on who was in charge of the containment and cleanup. At the beginning, there was Alyeska but they proved to be inadequate, so Exxon quickly gained control of cleanup. In the public’s eye, Exxon was leading the cleanup with the government playing a minimal background role (Piper 1992: 12).  According to one Exxon public relations official who was stationed in Valdez during the spill, “Exxon was a silent leader in the oil industry. We were not used to having our senior officials out talking to the press in front of the cameras. It was a new situation for us as a corporation” (Exxon PR : 2004). Exxon was not responsible to the public because they were not a government agency. The Coast Guard was the federal on-scene coordinator of the cleanup. But it was Exxon who gave cleanup workers instructions pertaining to the spill. This left the people with the burning question of why Exxon was in command, when they spilled the oil in the first place.

The biggest problem of the spill was simply the lack of resources to deal with cleanup. It does not matter who is in charge.(Piper 1992: 13) In essence, the command issue is not important if there is not enough personnel or equipment to contain and clean up the eleven million gallons of oil.

The initial response to the spill was very slow. Yet the response really took shape how it should have. Alyeska began cleanup, even though it was minimal. DEC began their role as the state on-scene coordinator and the Coast Guard assumed their role as the federal on-scene coordinator. Exxon’s move to be the leader of cleanup put in place a whole new group of managers who were unfamiliar with the Alyeska Contingency Plan and the state as a whole (Piper 1992: 14). Then Exxon used their own cleanup plan and provided no one with a copy. The Exxon cleanup plan was not approved by the state or federal government agencies. It also left the public with no clear idea or plan for the cleanup.

Although this approach caused some confusing problems for all parties, it was good in some practical ways that the cleanup took shape this way. Firstly, Exxon had “deep pockets” and were able to pay for the mobilization of cleanup equipment. By keeping Exxon in charge, the governments were giving up some sovereign control to gain more resources in the field quicker (Piper 1992: 18).

On the first day of the spill Exxon conducted the first of their many press conferences throughout the cleanup. There were approximately one hundred people in attendance. Exxon representatives were Frank Iarossi and Exxon scientist Dr. Al Maki (Exxon PR  2004). Exxon responded to community concerns about why the initial response took so long and why equipment was not stockpiled. They also discussed the herring population and how to get local citizens involved in the cleanup. Exxon maintained that there was no evidence that the crew could have prevented the grounding. The cause of the accident was unknown at the time of the conference. They did know that the ship was operational. Iarossi pointed out that Exxon would assume all financial responsibility for all claims that resulted from the spill (Havelcock 1989b: 18).

With Exxon taking the lead role in cleanup and containment, people found themselves dealing with Exxon instead of with the government. For example, in Cordova the spill response called for more people to go to work, leaving their kids at home. The demand for child care was up and rising. Child care workers were now cleanup workers because they got paid more to do that. The people of Cordova saw this as a major problem and they asked for the government’s help. Well, the Coast Guard is not used to dealing with domestic problems like this so they referred the public to Exxon (Piper 1992: 19-20). The problem was that Exxon could not be held accountable by the ordinary citizen, because Exxon was a private company. The only way a citizen could get something out of Exxon was through that individual’s or group’s negotiating skills (Piper 1992: 20).

Dispersants

Right away Exxon made plans to use dispersants to clean up the oil. Dispersants are chemicals that break down the oil into little droplets, making the oil less concentrated. Once the oil is broken down into small droplets, the waves and currents eventually eliminate the oil from the water (Townsend 1989: 172-73). Dispersants also help to keep the oil off the beaches. Large amounts of dispersants would be needed to clean up the oil from Exxon Valdez. The usual ratio is one part dispersant to twenty parts oil. Eleven million gallons of oil was spilt that would mean about 400,000 gallons of dispersants would be needed (Townsend 1989: 174). The Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, and DEC worked together to come up with guidelines for the use of dispersants in certain areas of the Sound. The guidelines were as follows:

At the beginning, spill tests were needed before the On-Scene Coordinator gave his approval to use dispersants. The tests lasted both March 24th and March 25th. The tests were inconclusive at best. Everyone was very careful about the use of dispersants because they were harmful to the environment. On Sunday, March 26th, the federal On-Scene Coordinator gave Frank Iarossi permission to use dispersants only in the Zone 1 areas (Townsend 1989: 175). By this time the winds began to pick up to approximately forty knots. The weather turned foul and the oil began to spread down the miles of coastline. The weather basically ended the discussion over the use of dispersants. Besides, on the Monday or Tuesday after the spill Exxon only had 110,000 gallons of dispersant in Anchorage, this was not nearly enough to make an impact on the oil slick (Townsend 1989: 176).

Burning

Another method for cleaning up oil spills is burning the oil off the surface of the water. Burning is regularly used in cleaning up the oil in open water areas. In the sound, the issue of burning was tricky because the burning oil puts off gases into the air that are very irritating to humans and animals. On the first evening of the spill DEC received a request from Exxon to test burn some oil off the surface of the water. DEC granted permission to conduct a test burn. On the evening of day two a test burn was conducted, 15,000 gallons of oil were burnt off.(Townsend 1989: 177) But before more burning could be done, the weather spread the oil onto the beaches making burning impossible.

Rick Steiner believes that burning was clearly not feasible for a few reasons: Firstly, the water was so cold it was hard to burn oil in such a cold climate. Secondly, the burning would take place several days after the spill; much of the vapors from the oil would have already evaporated making it difficult to ignite the oil. Finally, there were just too many people close to the spill; the air pollution from the burning oil would be harmful to humans (Steiner 2004). On the other hand, Gail Phillips, the executive director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, believes that Exxon Valdez and the oil leaking from it should have been burned from day one. She believes that people should have evacuated the PWS communities and the ship and oil should have been ignited. Phillips believes that Governor Cowper at the time “lacked the backbone” to make the decision to burn the ship and all the oil. She also believes that Exxon wanted to salvage the ship and the forty million gallons of oil still remaining onboard (Phillips: 2004).

Exxon: Public Relations

At the time of the spill Exxon Corporation was the largest private company in the world. The rest of the oil industry looked to Exxon to set the standards in all areas, including safety. Before the spill, the company would keep a low public profile. Senior Executives were rarely in news or in the public debate of energy policy. The oil spill forced Exxon to deal with people in a very public light (Exxon PR 2004.

In an interview, one Exxon official cleared up a myth about the Exxon Corporation. He stated, “People thought that Exxon was forced to clean up. That was not the case. At any time during the spill, Exxon could have turned cleanup control over to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard did not want to handle the cleanup, because they lacked the money and resources” (Exxon PR 2004). The Exxon official also pointed out some public relations mistakes made by Exxon during the cleanup. The first mistake was that the Exxon CEO’s did not report to the site of the spill right away, these made Exxon seem distant and not really interested in cleaning up the sound. Exxon’s second mistake was that their initial volume of information about their cleanup plans was not large enough (Exxon PR  2004). This made the public feel that Exxon was being secretive.

The Exxon Corporation’s public relations material and work throughout the spill is considered by many to have been terrible. Even Exxon employees agree that they totally underestimated the size and stamina of the spill story in the press. In a meeting with Dan Lawn, a DEC employee and the first state official to arrive at the site of the spill and, John Devens, the former Valdez mayor and now executive director of the PWS Regional Citizens Advisory Council (RCAC), both deemed Exxon had failed miserably with public relations during the spill cleanup (Devens 2004; Lawn 2004). Lawn felt that, “Frank Iarossi and others fully meant what they said when they wanted to work together to clean up the oil. It was not long until Iarossi got overrun with public relations people and corporate officials.” Lawn believed that the new people to show up were just trying to make Exxon look good instead of cleaning up the oil. For example, the fishermen  of PWS were talking to the press about their problems with Exxon so, Exxon hired the fishermen  to help clean up the oil. This action kept the fishermen  out of press and out in the Sound allowing Exxon to control the press (Lawn 2004). Lawn believed that there were a lot of good people in the system working for Exxon, but he also believed that there were a lot of people who would just “follow their master”. Lawn watched as the “Corporate” Exxon slowly took over and slowly began to manipulate the people of Alaska and the U.S. (Lawn 2004).

Dr. Rick Steiner from University of Alaska believes that Exxon got in way over their heads. He stated, “Exxon realized in the first day or two that they did not have a clue of what to do. They did not know the local area at all. Within two days Exxon plugged in fishermen  to the command group to get help and try and figure out a plan” (Steiner 2004). Steiner, who believes that the sound is still not recovered and scientifically can back up his hypothesis, claims that Exxon hurt more than just the environment, they also hurt the people of the communities surrounding the Sound (Steiner 2004).

Steiner also believes that Exxon worried more about protecting their public image instead of cleaning up oil. He stated, “Exxon would hire boats and attach boom to the boats and drive them around the sound just to create the image that they are actually cleaning the sound.” When asked if there was anything that he thought Exxon did particularly well in their response to the spill, Steiner answered, “They lightered the tanks well, wrote checks and got resources, and they also used pressured hot water to clean oil off the beaches” (Steiner 2004).

Kelly Weaverling, former Cordova Mayor and the leader in the animal rescue program in the Sound during the spill, noticed that Exxon would bend facts and try and manipulate the press to benefit the corporation. He would try to fight the Exxon public relations department by delivering all live rescued animals to shelters and rehabilitation places first. Weaverling would order all rescue boats to keep all the numerous dead animals on board the boats until they were done for the day. The press would show up and constantly film only the dead animals. This he believed would help show the public how destructive Exxon’s oil spill really was (Weaverling 2004).

Today scientific battles are erupting all over the Sound. Scientists are debating on whether or not the oil from the Exxon Valdez is still affecting the Sound. In some way it is a battle of public relations. Dr. Phil Mundy, the science director for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, believes that Exxon was trying desperately to make the oil go away as quickly as possible. They started using pressurized hot water to wash the oil off the beaches. This made the beaches look clean. In fact, the beaches looked too clean; the hot water had “cooked” all life on the beaches and had killed everything that lived there. The pressure also drove the oil into the sediments of the beach leaving it there where it still remains today (Mundy 2004). The NOAA Auke Bay Lab conducted a test that surveyed 8000 meters of shoreline. Ninety six sites were randomly selected and oil showed up at 58% of those sites (Mundy 2004). Dr. Mundy commented that twenty eight acres of coastline in PWS is still oiled beneath the surface of the water. Oil leaves behind a fingerprint and that fingerprint is the same as the oil that leaked from the Exxon Valdez (Mundy 2004). According to the EVOS Trustee Council’s website, “Buried or subsurface oil is of greater concern than surface oil. Subsurface oil can remain dormant for many years before being dispersed and is more liquid, still toxic, and may become biologically available. A disturbance event such as burrowing animals or a severe storm reworks the beach and can reintroduce unweathered oil into the water” (EVOSTC). The oil in the sound is still there and could be currently affecting the ecosystem. One thing that scientists know for sure is that oil, water, and animals do not mix.

Exxon scientists constantly say that there is not any more damage or effects from the spill. They conclude that some short term impacts did take place, but that the Sound is thriving today as strong as ever. Why do they come up with totally opposite conclusions then government scientists? One reason is because they have a different definition of the word “recovery”. According to ExxonMobil scientist Dr. Al Maki, “recovery occurs when the injured resource reaches the level it would be, had it not been injured in the first place” (Maki 2004). Dr. Al Maki also points out PWS has a history of being used by humans, therefore there is a history of human impact. He concludes that there is the possibility that the oil in these impacted areas is not from the Exxon Valdez but from other human impacts (Maki 2004).

Conclusion

When looking at Exxon’s overall response to the spill I notice a common trend and that is that Exxon was not prepared to deal with a spill of this magnitude. Exxon is a parent corporation of Alyeska, it was their job to make sure that Alyeska was up to date and prepared to deal with a spill. I also believe that is fair to blame Exxon for the spill entirely. The Exxon Valdez was their tanker and it was carrying their oil and their employees. But, the slow and inadequate response to the spill is not entirely Exxon’s fault. The state and federal governments both approved of Alyeska’s contingency plan. It was partly their responsibility to hold the industry accountable. I agree strongly with Stan Stevens of the Prince William Sound RCAC, who stated, “Complacence is the biggest reason the Exxon Valdez cleanup efforts and response were slow…they are not good corporate neighbors, Exxon gives money to city, etc. But that is because it is cheaper for them to do this instead of fixing what is wrong” (Stevens 2004).  In essence, the state and federal governments and Exxon allowed for the initial poor response of Alyeska. In effect, the initial poor response slowed down and stigmatized the cleanup efforts that were created by Exxon. Exxon’s size and influence allows them to buy their way out of situations and thus the public holds the company less accountable for their actions.

I also believe that the initial response mounted by Exxon was in the best interest of protecting the Sound and the people who live there. Evidence leads me to believe that Iarossi was a compassionate man who felt personally responsible for the spill. It was after more and more Exxon employees arrived that the situation turned from bad to worse. Exxon became a “corporation” once again. They began to make decisions that were in the best interest of the company and not necessarily best for the cleanup effort. Exxon did not follow the Alyeska Contingency Plan. Instead Exxon used their own cleanup plan, which added to the confusion and chaos of the spill.  The system that formed, with state and federal governments in advisory roles and Exxon as the leading respondent, made a little bit of sense to people educated in spill response. Officials understood what each body was supposed to do, even though the cleanup response was not running smoothly. Exxon overall handled the spill to the best that they knew how and that was the “corporate” way. In many ways they were rude and arrogant and hard to work with. Much of this can be attributed to their previous lack of knowledge about the area where they were extracting resources. Frank Iarossi had not even read the Alyeska Contingency Plan that he was supposed to follow and did not know that the state had oversight over the spill response (Piper 1992: 15). Exxon wanted the authority to do whatever they wanted to clean up the oil. Exxon failed to consult with federal and state officials on many issues such as dispersant usage and shoreline cleanup. The lacks of communication lead to much confusion and misunderstanding between the three agencies and the public. No one wanted or wished for the oil to spill in Prince William Sound. Exxon did not purposely spill eleven million gallons of oil. But the fact still remains that their response was slow. From a public relations point of view, they failed to get their information and personnel out to the public soon enough. Exxon seemed to be more worried about maintaining a “certain” company image instead of protecting one of Earth’s most pristine environments.

Works Cited

Devens, John. 2004. Personal Interview. Valdez, May 12.

EVOS Trustee Council Website. “Lingering Oil” www.oilspill.state.ak.us%2f&qte=0&o=0.     (May 24th, 2004)

EVOS Trustee Council. 2003. 2003 Status Report. Anchorage, Alaska: EVOSTC www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/settlement.html. (May 22, 2004)

Exxon PR Employee (anonymous). 2004.  Personal phone interview. April 26.

Federal On-Scene Coordinators Report T/V Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: United States Coast Guard and   Department of Transportation. September 1993. Final     Report March 24th, 1989 to June10th, 1992

Havelcock, John. 1990a. SPILL: The Wreck of Exxon Valdez; Implications for Safe Transportation of Oil. State of Alaska.

Havelcock, John. 1990b. SPILL: The Wreck of Exxon Valdez; Implications for Safe Transportation of OilAppendix N.  State of Alaska.

Lawn, Dan. 2004. Personal Interview. Valdez, May 12.

Liptak, Adam. 2004. “Punitive Damages of $4.5 Billion in Exxon Valdez Case”, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/national/28CND-EXXON.html?ex=1079413200&en=05a08529170daa9e&ei=5070 (May 22, 2004)

Maki, Al. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage, May 1.

Mundy, Phillip. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage, April 30.

Phillips, Gail. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage, April 30.

Phillips, Natalie. 1994. “Exxon Settles Lawsuit: Natives get $20 Million for Subsistence Loses,” Anchorage Daily News, July 26.      www.adn.com/evos/stories/EV362.html. May 23, 2004

Piper, Ernst. 1992. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: Final Report, State of Alaska Response. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Steiner, Rick. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage, May 1.

Stevens, Stan. 2004. Personal Interview. Valdez, May 12.

Townsend, Richard. 1989. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: A Management Analysis.         Center for Marine Conservation.

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

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