The Psychological and Social Impact on Human Communities of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: 15 Years Later

Steven L. Whetstone

Introduction

Shortly after midnight on March 24, 1989 the nine hundred and eighty-seven foot supertanker Exxon Valdez, loaded with over fifty-three million gallons of North Slope Crude oil ran aground on the rocks of Bligh Reef, spilling oil into the pristine environment of Prince William Sound, Alaska. The oil quickly spread to not only the fishing shores of Prince William Sound but to the fishing areas and beaches of Kenai Peninsula, Cook Inlet, Kodiak Island, and the Alaska Peninsula. This time of year was the most biologically active season in the area, and so the spill impacted the ecosystem through the summer of 1989.

Even to this day, 15 years later, the environment is not considered to be back to its once pristine state, not only from the oil itself but also from the detrimental cleanup methods (Picou & Gill, 1996).

The accident made its mark on history by becoming the largest oil spill in the history of North America, spilling between eleven and twenty-two million gallons of oil. While most say that there were approximately eleven million gallons spilled, others say that there was at least twice that amount. The reason for this dissonance in the estimation of spilled oil is due to the methods used to successfully keep the remaining oil on the Exxon Valdez supertanker from spilling into Prince William Sound by pumping the oil into another tanker, the Exxon Baton Rouge. Since the amount lost was determined by how much oil was pumped out of the Exxon Valdez, the exact numbers were tainted by the water that was potentially leaking into the Exxon Valdez. Therefore, when the Exxon Baton Rouge was pumping out oil, it could have very well been pumping out water too (Steiner, 2004). Rescue teams on the contingency plan spent three days debating how to contain the oil, and since no one really knew how to deal with this size of a spill or wanted to take blame for the spill, no sufficient efforts were made to take care of the immediate problem.

Unfortunately, the decision took too long and a horrendous storm arose on the fourth day, spreading oil to the southwest beyond any chance of containment. After that spring, more than one-thousand miles of shoreline had been doused in oil. In the reparative efforts following the spill, Exxon and their prime contractor VECO took many actions to cleanup the technological disaster. They hired thousands of residents including local fishermen to use their fishing vessels in order to lay containment booms and help with the transportation of equipment. In some instances, entire communities such as Tatilek were hired to protect their own beaches (Palinkas et al., 1993: 1). Exxon did not have much trouble finding help in cleaning up the oil spill due to their widely advertised wages of $16.69 per hour plus overtime. Exxon says that they spent a total of $2.1 billion towards the effort to clean up the oil spill (Questions, 2004). To clean up the disaster, thousands of workers scrubbed rocks or used high-pressured hot water to clean the beaches of Prince William Sound. Sadly, the high pressured hot water washing not only cleaned off the oil but also wiped away any organisms that might have lived on or in-between the rocks. Today, environmental researchers have found that the pressure of the water actually pushed the oil deeper into the surface, making the rehabilitation process slower than anticipated at the time of the cleanup (Steiner, 2004).

The primary concerns of authorities involved in the oil spill rehabilitation were the environment and the economy. A tremendous amount of money was contributed by Exxon to restore the environment to its state as before the oil spill, although little was done to spend the money in equilibrium with the environment, and on the distressed human community (Picou & Gill, 1996). The Exxon Valdez oil spill had drastic effects on the communities, friendships, Alaska Natives, fishermen, and the children; the repercussions are still visible today, fifteen years later.

The Cleavage of Communities and Friendships

A study by Picou and Gill (1996) states:

There were several reasons why human communities were affected. First, some communities were working and getting paid to clean up the spill, while many others were not. In an effort to make right the problems they had created, Exxon offered jobs not only to help clean up the spill, but also to create new jobs for those whose jobs were lost due to the oil spill such as the fishermen, whose revenue losses totaled more than one-hundred and fifty-five million dollars (Cohen, 1995). Unfortunately, the unequal amount of clean-up jobs left some fishermen with nothing, and when large amounts of “outsiders” came in and started taking the much-needed jobs, it created a rivalry. Arguments between residents of Alaska and “outsiders” were not uncommon in most of the communities. A study by Palinkas et al. (1993) showed that between thirty and fifty percent of the affected communities indicated that they had problems with the outsiders. The respondents said this usually was because the outsiders were obtrusive and generally did not take responsibility for their drunken actions. Similarly,

Palinkas et al. (1993) also brought to light the fact that conflicts with outsiders were not the only problem. Twenty-four percent of the respondents said that the oil spill even brought on conflicts with their friends due to cleanup issues. More specifically, in Native villages more than forty percent of the respondents said they had friendships end because of these issues. This study also noted that most of the topics of arguments were over the environmental effects of the spill; issues of who was at fault, who should be responsible for the cleanup, whether to help Exxon with the cleanup or make them do the work, and other employment issues.

Not only were there arguments between friends, there was also a reduction in the tendency to socialize. Palinkas et al. (1993) showed that those who worked on the cleanup reported a forty-two percent reduction in socialization with friends, compared to a nineteen percent reduction for those who did not participate in the cleanup activities. Once again, Native villages were more affected than the Euro-American population and reported a seventy percent decrease in socialization. Such decreases are not uncommon with technological disasters. Research shows that in several cases, technological disasters were found to lead to a pattern of social deterioration which is referred to as “corrosive community.” A corrosive community is a situation where community members demand a response from authorities to take responsibility for their actions, although authorities remain unresponsive. This places a burden on the victims of the disaster by leaving them with no one to take action for the disaster and the community begins to become very suspicious, paranoid, and become distressed with the ongoing fight with authorities (Arata et al., 2000).

Why Alaska Natives Were Impacted More

Alaska Natives were more affected by the oil spill for several reasons. First, many more Natives than Euro-Americans participated in cleanup activities. The Natives had more damage done to their commercial fisheries, their subsistence, and their culture than the damage to non-Natives (Palinkas et al. 1992: 292). Many subsistence foods were affected by the oil, not only because of the death to hundreds of thousands of animals, but also because of the fear that plants on beaches were soiled. Any inland animals that ate off the beaches were feared to be contaminated as well (Palinkas et al. 1993: 7). The combination of these factors left many Native communities concerned with their food supply. Secondly, another problem occurred when only some of the Natives were working on the cleanup and therefore had enough money to buy nonsubsistence food, while others did not (Palinkas et al. 1992: 293). An anthropologist hired by Exxon stated that the subsistence changes were bound to happen sooner or later, and actually described the positive effects the subsistence change had upon the Alaska Natives (Wooley, 2004). What he ignored is the fact that the Natives had lived this way for many years for a reason. It describes who they are, and it is written in their culture.

Not only did the oil spill affect the subsistence way of life, it also affected the Native culture and how the Natives felt things should be done.

In a culture where tradition plays a large role, this interruption of tradition has drastic effect. Elders are very much respected in most Native communities. They are considered wise and are revered, and therefore spend much of their time teaching the youth the proper way to do things according to their culture. In Tatilek, framed pictures of elders can be found on the walls of the community school to remind the youth of who their elders are. This Native tradition was greatly affected, as contractors of the cleanup would give young adults high status jobs in which their responsibility was to supervise the older residents of the cleanup. This caused serious problems since it was against many cultural values, such as the valuing of elders, and the belief that a young person should never earn more than an elder. Not only were young people hired to supervise their elders, women were also hired to higher positions then men, which too was against the Native cultures, and played a significant role in the depression found in many men, following the disruption (Palinkas et al. 1992: 293).

The Fishermen

Arata et al. (2000) used Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources Model to see if the growing number of people suffering from depression had anything to do with psychological harm due to the loss of resources. Hobfoll categorized resources into (1) objects (e.g., vehicles, house), (2) personal characteristics (e.g., self esteem, sense of self), (3) conditions (e.g., marriage, friendships), and (4) energies (e.g., credit, owed favors). He then suggested that the loss or perceived loss of resources would mean significant psychological harm. Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources model came into play with other studies of disasters such as Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Sierra Madre Earthquake in Los Angeles County, California. In both cases, lost resources were a major predictor of psychological distress. Arata et al. (2000) focused their research on the fishermen of Cordova, who held over ninety percent of the Prince William Sound fishery permits. In this study they used Hobfoll’s model for the Exxon Valdez oil spill and found that having to sell possessions due to the oil spill was significantly correlated with anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder, with correlations ranging from .23 to .26 (Arata et al 2000; 31). Through use of the Hobfoll Conservation of Resources Model, resource loss alone accounted for thirty percent of all the anxiety symptoms, and thirty-seven percent of the variance of posttraumatic stress disorder with the changes in physical health, changes in relations with friends and non-relatives, and making investments without gain (Arata et al 2000: 33-34).

This model was not significant with depression as it only had a six percent variance. Overall in this study they found that one-fifth of the fishers had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and over one-third had significant symptoms of depression and/or posttraumatic stress disorder (Arata et al. 2000: 34). One may question this study by saying that fishermen had higher rates of psychological distress regardless of the spill, due to their highly stressful job. To answer this, Picou et al. (1997) compared distress levels among residents in Cordova with residents of Petersburg, Alaska, a community that had fishermen but was not affected by the oil spill. They found that mean depression scores were higher among Cordova fishers than those in Petersburg.

The Children

Not only were the Natives, fishermen, other residents, and cleanup workers affected psychologically by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but so were the children. Not only did it affect children because of their parents being depressed and distressed, but also because of the significant drop in the amount of time that was spent with children. Many workers would spend long hard hours at work and spend their free time at the bar, whereas before they might’ve spent it at home with their children. In some instances the oldest child was given parental duties until the parents came back, and then the child was expected to act like a “normal child” again. Between those who were not really exposed to the oil spill and those who were highly exposed, the highly exposed group had statistically significant differences in their children such as the children not wanting to be left alone, more fighting occurring with other children, having trouble getting along with parents, and decreased academic performance (Russell et al., 1993:47-49).

However, when Gail Phillips, the Executive Director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, was asked if she thinks that further action should be pursued to take Exxon to court for the problems that occurred in families due to lack of childcare, she said that the parents of families were not forced to go out and work at cleanup sites. It was their own decision to do so, and in many cases they were labeled “Spillionaires” because they got such a high wage and made a fortune off of these job opportunities (Phillips, 2004). She may have forgotten that the spill destroyed many jobs, especially the fishing organizations, and that in some cases Natives had to make money in order to buy nonsubsistence foods. With many being jobless and having had their main source of food destroyed, it was almost crucial that they took these cleanup jobs in order to replace their jobs and food source.

Comparison to Other Disasters

While the Alaska Natives are unique in their situation with this technological disaster, the psychological impacts are generally seen as the same in other similar cases (see chapter on technological disasters in this volume). For example, people affected by the Three Mile Island (a nuclear power plant near Middleton, Pennsylvania which was suspected of leaking potentially dangerous amounts of radioactive gasses into the environment) experienced similar psychological distress, anxiety, and depression as did the majority of people who were involved in the Exxon Valdez oil spill (Baum & Fleming, 1993). Another study showed that disasters usually impact mental health with depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Along with these mental health problems there are also somatic complaints, relationship problems, and increased visits to mental health facilities. These effects have been shown to last up to fourteen years with other disasters, and were generally most common within two years of the disaster (Green & Lindy, 1994; Green, 1996). One year after the spill, Palinkas et al. (1993: 8) found that 20 percent of the population suffered from generalized anxiety disorder, 9 percent from post-traumatic stress disorder, and 16.6 percent from depression.

The Ongoing Fight

While some disasters have been shown to carry psychological distress for up to fourteen years, at the time of this paper, the Exxon Valdez oil spill has already surpassed that with fifteen years (Green & Lindy, 1994; Green, 1996). Why are psychological problems still present even after fifteen years? Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor and conservation specialist, believes it is because Exxon chooses to appeal any suit that is brought against it such as the civil suit for five billion dollars. He said Exxon can afford to pay and should just do it so that they can move on and the people of Alaska can finally move on as well. With Exxon constantly coming up with appeals, it leaves Alaskans no choice but to continue to carry the burden Exxon has bestowed upon them, not only because they want justice but also because they fear that if they move on Exxon will be able to escape the suit as well. Steiner also says that people carry the distress because even after such a dramatic oil spill, Exxon still does not take all the precautions that many feel would prevent such an event from occurring again, such as double-hull tankers (Steiner; 2004). Al Maki, an ExxonMobil scientist, says the reason that Exxon will not pay the litigation again is because they already have paid the fishermen four times for the loss of income. When questioned why it should matter if Exxon paid the fishermen four times if they are still being affected by it, he said that the fish could have been decreased for other reasons other than the oil spill, as the natural way of life (Maki, 2004).

Another possible reason that many Alaskans may carry ongoing distress, especially older residents, is the 1964 Alaskan Earthquake. The city of Valdez was destroyed by a tsunami that followed the earthquake. Thirty-three people died, port instillations and three hundred and twenty-five homes were destroyed, all on Good Friday in 1964 (Keeble, 1991: 7). It is ironic that twenty-five years later, on Good Friday of 1989 is when the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred. It is quite possible that a Valdez resident who lived through the Earthquake of 1964 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 is going to carry anxiety, especially during Good Friday of each year.

After the oil spill the town again became packed with workers, media, government officials, and officials from companies like Exxon, swelling from one-thousand to about eight-thousand residents. With such competitive wages for workers of any kind, it was difficult for local hotels, shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and canneries to keep their employees. A woman from Valdez said that when she worked in a grocery store, the store had a very hard time keeping up with the demand as a result of the swell of people who literally would buy out their storage of items such as bread and milk (Clerk, 2004). Thus, much distress was most likely imposed on those who owned the local businesses due to not being able to keep their employees and not being able to keep up with the demands of the large crowds.

Where Did It Start?

Psychological distress could have began when Congress approved the building of the pipeline in 1971 as long as Alyeska (a corporation comprised of six oil companies that used the same pipeline in Alaska) fulfilled certain requirements including the state-of-the-art oil spill contingency plan, double hull tankers, incinerators to burn off sludge and toxic vapors, and storage tanks. Alyeska never built the fourteen storage tanks or the incinerator, they used less expensive carbon steel versus stainless steel in miles of pipeline, they never had a double hull tanker, and obviously their contingency plan was not planned properly (Keeble, 1991: 17). It took Alyeska at least twelve hours to get cleanup equipment out to the Exxon Valdez tanker, even though the company through its contingency plan promised it could do it in five hours. Hence, when Exxon still does not provide double hull tankers or other precautions to prevent an oil spill, it brings serious concerns to the people of Alaska.

Another problem that is concerning many people is when Alaskan resident Daniel Lewis fired his .338 caliber rifle at the pipeline and caused a 277,000 gallon oil spill that spread four hundred yards west of the hole. It took hours to shut down the pipeline, but due to the pressure that remained in the pipeline it continued to leak at one hundred and forty gallons per minute for twenty-four hours (OSPU, 2004). The pipeline is getting old and is corroding, which is why Lewis’s bullet went through the half inch steel. Many people are becoming nervous about what will happen if the pipeline breaks and spills in a river the size of the Yukon river. There is not much of anything that can be done to contain oil if it is spilled in the river, and the results would be far worse than the spill in Prince William Sound (Steiner; 2004).

Conclusion

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill was a dramatic historical event that was publicized widely throughout the world, though few knew of the effects the spill had on the human communities. To this day, many still do not know of these impacts. The oil spill had a drastic impact on communities and friendships through the uneven number of cleanup jobs, which caused a cleavage of communities, arguments, and a reduction in socialization, with the biggest social and psychological impacts being on the Alaska Natives, fishermen, and their immediate families.

Alaska Natives were the people affected most by the spill because of their greater involvement in the spill cleanup, and the damage to their subsistence foods as a result of the toxic oil being washed on their beaches, the hundreds of thousands of animals killed, and inland animals that continued to feed off the toxic beaches and water animals. Their culture was also disturbed by the lack of subsistence, since only those who worked the cleanup jobs were able to buy nonsubsistence foods. The friendships and socialization levels were also greatly affected, due to cleanup issues and depression from contractors who did not respect Native cultural values, and gave young adults and women higher status jobs than elders and men.

The fishermen were affected most by the loss of resources, and few were left with a choice, when their only way to make a living became trying to get a cleanup job, in order to compensate for their loss in the fishing business. Many fishermen were not able to get a cleanup job position and were simply left with nothing.

Due to the amount of parental involvement in the cleanup, there was little child care and attention as well. Because of this, the education of the children was greatly affected as well.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill had many similar psychological problems as with other disasters (such as the disaster on Three Mile Island), and the effects are still shown even after fifteen years. Damage will continue to be done to the Natives, as long as there is oil being pumped through the Alyeska pipeline, as long as lawsuits are being filed and appealed, as long as the culture and subsistence of Alaska Natives are still being affected, and as long as communities, friendships, and the Alaskan Natives' way of life are still being disrupted, due to the largest oil spill in the history of North America.

A wise man once said, ‘where there is life, there is hope.’ And that is true. But what we see now is death, death not of each other, but of a source of life, the water. We will need much help, much listening in order to live through the long barren season of dead water, a longer winter than ever before. I am an elder. I am chief. I will not lose hope. I will help my people. We have never lived through this kind of death, but we have lived through lots of other kinds of death. We will learn from the past, we will learn from each other, and we will live. The water is dead, but we are alive, and where there is life there is hope (Meganack 1989).

Works Cited

Alaska Public Radio Network (APRN). 1991. Poisoned Waters: Alaska Natives and the Oil Spill. Homer, AK, True North Productions

Arata, Catalina M., Picou, J. Steven., Johnson, G. David, McNally, T. Scott. 2000. “Coping with Technological Disaster: An Application of the Conservation of Resources Model to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill”. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 13, 1: 23-39

Baum, Andrew & India Fleming. 1993. “Implications of Psychological Research on Stress and Technological Accidents”. American Psychologist, 48: 665-72

Clerk (Unknown). 2004. Personal Interview. Valdez, May 12.

Cohen, Maurie J. 1995. “Technological Disasters and Natural Resource Assessment: An Evaluation of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Land Economics, 22: 71-75.

Fall, James A. & Charles J. Utermohle (eds.). 1995. An Investigation of the Sociocultural Consequences of Outer Continental Shelf Development in Alaska, 11 Prince William Sound. (OCS Study MMS 95-011). Anchorage, AK: U.S. Department of the Interior.

Green, Bonnie L. 1996. “Traumatic Stress and Disaster: Mental Health Effects and Factors Influencing Adaptation.” In F.L. Mak & C.C. Nadelson (Eds.), International Review of Psychiatry, 2, Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.

Green, Bonnie L., & Lindy, Jacob D. 1994. “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Victims of Disasters.” Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 17, 301-09

Keeble, John. 1991. Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound. New York, NY, HarperCollins Publishers 290

Maki, Al. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage-Exxon Headquarters, May 1.

Meganack, Walter, Sr. 1989. “Coping With the Time the Water Died.” Anchorage Daily News August 5: B 11.

Morrison, Eric. 1993. “Tatilek”, Minerals Management Service, Social Indicators Study of Alaskan Costal Villages: IV Postspill Key Informant Summaries, Schedule C Communities, Part I (OCS Study MMS 92-0052). Anchorage, AK; U.S. Department of the Interior: 427-36

“Oil Spill Program Update” (OPSU). 2004. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Online, http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/pdfs/vol4no4.pdf, May 29, 2004.

Palinkas, Lawrence A., John Russell, Michael A. Downs, and John S. Petterson. 1992. “Ethnic Differences in Stress, Coping, and Depressive Symptoms after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill”, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 180, 5: 287-95.

Palinkas, Lawrence A., Michael A. Downs, John S. Petterson, and John Russell. 1993. “Social, Cultural, and Psychological Impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill”; Human Organization, 52,1 Spring: 1-13.

Phillips, Gail. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage-Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council Office, April 30.

Picou, J. Steven., Gill, Duane A. 1996. “The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and Chronic Psychological Stress”; American Fisheries Society Symposium 18: 879-93.

Picou, J. Steven, Duane. A. Gill, Maurie J. Cohen. 1997. The Exxon Valdez Disaster: Readings on a Modern Social Problem. Dubuque, IA: Kendall- Hunt.

“Questions and Answers”. 2004. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. Online, http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/qanda.html; May 29.

Russell, John C., Larry A. Palinkas, and Downs, Michael. 1993. Social, Psychological, and Municipal Impacts Related to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Portland, OR: Briker, Nodland, Studenmund, Inc.

Steiner, Rick. 2004. Personal Interview. University of Alaska-Anchorage, May 1.

Wooley, Christopher. 2004. Personal Interview. Anchorage-Exxon Headquarters, May 1.

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