Lay of the Land

Oil And Archaeology

Two decades after the Exxon Valdez spilled at least 11 million gallons of crude into Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, they are still cleaning up and assessing the damages, including destruction of dozens of archaeological sites. When BP’s Deepwater Horizon well exploded killing 11 men and releasing 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the preservation community was much better prepared to deal with the disaster that threatened hundreds of sites along the Gulf Coast (See “Coping With The BP Oil Spill,” page18).

In 1997, several federal agencies, including the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, collaborated on an 11-page policy document spelling out just how archaeological and historic sites would be protected in case of another major oil spill in American waters. That planning is paying off today as cleanup of the BP spill continues. While oil was still gushing from the broken well, a contract archaeology firm was hired to assess the sites and the damages. The firm worked with archaeologists from the states affected by the spill to investigate some 500 threatened sites and to protect them, if possible. At last count, 53 are contaminated with oil.

One lesson learned from the Alaska experience was that the cleanup crews were capable of inflicting as much damage to cultural sites as the spilled oil. Consequently, in Louisiana and the other affected states, officials have instructed BP’s cleanup crews to leave the sites alone and work around them, and thereby avoid making a bad situation worse. Clearly the early planning led to the preservation of many sites in the Gulf. The long-term impact remains to be seen, but it could have been a lot worse. The next time disaster strikes, be it oil spills, forest fires, or earthquakes, we all need to be better prepared to save the nation’s cultural treasures.

Mark Michel, President