Lingering Harm: Oil’s Toxic Legacy

By Riki Ott

»Over 30 million gallons of crude oil blackened the waters of Prince William Sound in the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989. At the time, the general consensus among scientists was that the oil spill’s effects on sea life would be deadly but short-term. They predicted that birds and marine mammals would suffer and die through hypothermia, drowning and ingestion through preening and grooming. Fish and other marine life in the water column would take a hit from toxic compounds that would remain at concentrations in mere parts per million parts of seawater — seemingly very low levels. But scientists believed that oil stranded on beaches and in sediments would rapidly degrade, leaving an asphaltlike substrate that was ‘environmentally benign’ or harmless. Wildlife would recover rapidly. They were partially right. The Exxon Valdez killed more wildlife than any other oil spill in history. But the killing did not stop in 1989 and, nearly two decades later, the Prince William Sound is still struggling to recover. Ultimately, the Exxon Valdez unleashed a cascade of events that would change scientists’ understanding of oil toxicity. Today scientists know oil is a thousand times more toxic than ever thought before.

As early as 1990, Exxon scientists heralded the ‘remarkable recovery’ of the sound. But government and other scientists continued to observe impacts. Pink salmon eggs, developing in oiled beaches, died in ever increasing numbers from 1990 through 1992. Young sea otter pups, first weaned from their mothers, died by the score on oiled beaches. Harlequin ducks died over winter on beaches covered in black.

This was only the beginning. In April 1993 the Pacific herring stocks crashed unexpectedly, followed

Exxon claimed it spilled 11 million gallons, but this self-reported number was never verified independently. Four years after the spill the State of Alaska released its investigation into the matter. The state estimated the spill at 30 to 35 million gallons.

III

G aps

Crude oil from the Exxon Valdez swirls on the surface of Alaska’s Prince William Sound near Naked Island on April 9, 1989, 16 days after the tanker ran aground.

Routine Exposure

Findings of OIL: A Life Cycle Analysis of its Health and Environmental Impacts a study by the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School: Occupationally-related fatalities among workers in the oil and gas •

extraction process are higher than deaths for workers from all other U.S. industries combined. Many leaks and spills occur in developing nations where safety regulations for •

pipelines and oil rigs are inadequately enforced. Gasoline and many of its additives can lead to acute and chronic toxicity, and is •

associated with some types of cancer. Groups at high risk for exposure to gasoline and its additives include: employees •

in the distribution, storage and pumping of gasoline; people living near refineries, transfer and storage facilities and service stations; automobile drivers who pump their own gas; people who live in houses with attached garages; and those whose drinking water has been contaminated with gasoline.

Bill Scheer, of Valdez, Alaska, is covered in crude oil while working on a beach fowled by the spill of the tanker Exxon Valdez. Local fishermen drafted by Exxon to staff the cleanup have suffered from an array of health effects.