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Federal authorities and officials in Alaska are closing their cases on the Exxon Valdez disaster, nearly 26 years after the grounded supertanker unleashed what was then the worst US oil spill. The Justice Department and its Alaskan counterpart had been seeking additional cleanup funds from ExxonMobil after a decline in harlequin ducks and sea otters in oil-stricken Prince William Sound. The drop in populations had been blamed on buried oil that remained long after the 1989 disaster, but the Justice Department said those species have since rebounded to pre-spill levels and that the lingering oil "is no longer biologically significant...

"Last month, the (Indian) court ruled in favour of Priya Blue: there was no toxic waste on the ship. The Oriental Nicety (formerly the Exxon Valdez) is welcome to beach at Alang, the world's largest ship-breaking yard, where she will be dismantled for scrap. But as with so many things in the story of the Exxon Valdez, the end will be drawn out. It will take 500 workers four months to dismember her carcass." (enclosed words mine)

And truth be told, the cleanup will no doubt reach a point of diminishing returns… For example (and this is just an example), BP might be able to remediate 75% of the damage at a cost of $40 billion, 80% at a cost of $50 billion, 83% at a cost of $75 billion, and 84% at a cost of $150 billion. Put another way, there will come a time when there just isn’t enough ecological bang for the (available) cleanup buck...

Energy Policy: President Obama says the oil disaster proves the need to get off fossil fuels. But before we save the planet, let's save the Gulf and stop exploiting crises to deny America the energy it needs. Saving the planet is nice, but just how do we plug the hole again? With an abundance of hand gestures, the president didn't really say in his speech Tuesday night. He did say fossil fuels were bad and green energy is good, but the people of the Gulf states don't need wind turbines right now. Contrary to Obama's assertions, our "addiction" to foreign...

Leadership: The president says he went to the Gulf to find out whose derriere to kick. After he gets his foot out of his own mouth, perhaps he can talk to us about that Coast Guard memo. Scapegoating has become a hallmark of this administration. Certainly BP was responsible for the safe operation and maintenance of Deepwater Horizon. But after an accident in federal waters the federal government, which has a plan to save the entire planet from greenhouse gases, had no plan to save the Gulf from a single gushing well, with the possible exception of finger-pointing. In this...

Energy Policy: To save the environment, a senator from Pennsylvania wants to shut off a major source of natural gas. Weren't the roads to the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters paved with equally good intentions? Environmentalism did not cause the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, but it did help make it possible, just as 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster, which the Gulf Oil spill has now eclipsed, was also ironically made possible by a desire to protect the environment. The original plan when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope was to build a pipeline directly to the...

Here's Proof The Market Thinks This Oil Spill Will Be WAY Worse Than Exxon Valdez Joe Weisenthal May. 4, 2010, 8:14 AM A simple, telling chart from Greg Stettner at Tower Private Investors. BP (BP) vs. Exxon (XOM) after their respective crises. [snip]

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...

Clippings turned into booms to absorb oil Hair stylists work hard to keep their floors clear of hair clippings, and certainly no one wants it in the sink. The's just downright gross, not to mention bad for the pipes. But a non-profit group in San Francisco is making hair a friend to the environment. Apparently, during the nasty Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, a stylist down south was watching the coverage of animals covered in oil and had an "ah-ha" moment. He realized hair is absorbent as he had a client in the shampoo bowl. That gave birth to...

Anchorage, AK – Governor Palin today signed Senate Bill 3 and House Joint Resolution 19. Poor weather caused Governor Palin to cancel the visit to Valdez for the signing. Heavy fog surrounded the port city on Monday, preventing the governor's plane from landing, instead the bills were signed at The Governor’s Anchorage office.

At midnight on March 24,1989, after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, more than 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the waters. It was the beginning of America's worst environmental nightmare. More than 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound 20 years ago when the Exxon Valdex oil tanker struck a reef More than 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound 20 years ago when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef Fish and wildlife perished and fishermen saw their livelihood vanish....

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska. The nation's highest court ruled that the punitive damages should be limited to an amount equal to the total relevant compensatory damages of $507.5 million. In the court's opinion, Justice David Souter concluded that the $2.5 billion in punitive damages was excessive under federal maritime law, and should be cut to the amount of actual harm. By a 5-3 vote, the justices overturned a ruling by...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, in a fractured ruling, said punitive damages are allowed in a lawsuit over the 1989 Valdez oil spill but that lower courts should reduce the $2.5 billion award. Justice David Souter, in the court's majority opinion, said the punitive damages award should be brought into line with $287 million in compensatory damages awarded against Exxon in the lawsuit. "The award here should be limited to an amount equal to compensatory damages," Souter wrote. The high court otherwise split evenly 4-4 on an important maritime law question in the case but concluded that federal...

-snip- Robinson explains that before they left the area his team convinced Alaska state authorities to set up nine locations that were not cleaned up, so they could monitor whatever long-term improvements were observed. “For a period of years,” John says, “those locations [that were left alone] were in much better shape than the locations that had been aggressively cleaned up. “The very aggressive way we went about it - I have to fault myself on this, because I’m the one that directed it, turned out to be a much more serious problem than the oil was. We were killing...

Environmental regulations are notoriously difficult to keep up with, what with all the paperwork and communication required. Just ask Greenpeace. The radical environmental group and habitual filer of lawsuits is learning how the other side feels after prosecutors in Alaska filed criminal charges against it for violating state environmental laws. It seems a Greenpeace boat, the Arctic Sunrise, entered Alaskan water without the required oil spill prevention plan and proof of financial responsibility should a spill occur. The vessel, which can carry 128,000 gallons of fuel and lubricants (Exxon Valdez, anyone?), was sailing near Ketchikan to protest logging activities. The...

Spill Spin By Robert G. Williscroft, PhD They did it again: U.S. District Judge H. Russell Holland in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Alaska, has just levied a fine totaling nearly $7 billion against Exxon Mobil Corp. for its part in the 1989 oil spill near Valdez, Alaska. As the headlines flash around the world, leading newspapers are regurgitating material from 15 years ago. For example, on Thursday the Washington Post reported that "The grounding of the Exxon Valdez on March 24, 1989, set off the largest oil spill in history, devastating area ecosystems and the local fishing industry."...

Judge Orders Exxon Mobil to Pay Nearly $7 Billion in Spill Damages By Rachel D'oro Associated Press Writer ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Exxon Mobil Corp. to pay about $6.75 billion to thousands of Alaskans affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The ruling is the latest of several damage awards in the case over the past decade - the result of successful appeals in federal court by Exxon. The company plans to appeal again. Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Russel Holland ordered the Irving, Texas-based company to pay $4.5 billion in punitive...

Friday December 6, 9:55 pm ET IRVING, Texas (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, said on Friday a federal court in Alaska has decided it should pay $4 billion in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Exxon Mobil, which argues that it should pay no more than $40 million for the 1989 tanker accident, said it planned to appeal the order. The decision was handed down by the federal court in Anchorage and reduced to $4 billion from $5 billion the amount of punitive damages awarded last year in connection with...

Whales, salmon, seabirds recovered from Valdez spill ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Salmon, killer whales and some seabirds are now thriving in Alaska's Prince William Sound and fully recovered from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, government scientists said in a report released. A draft report presented to a panel of state and federal trustees overseeing a spill settlement fund lists five species as recovered from the 11 million gallon (41 million liter) disaster. Species newly designated as recovered are killer whales, pink salmon, sockeye salmon, common murres and black oystercatchers. They were added to a list of two other species,...