Exxon Valdez
 The Exxon Valdez , three days after it hit a reef
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The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker . The ship , sailing under the flag of the United States , ran aground off Alaska on March 24, 1989 , triggering an oil spill and one of the greatest environmental disasters in shipping. After a repair, it was put back into operation under the name Exxon Mediterranean and was in service until 2012, most recently as an ore carrier under the name Oriental Nicety .
history
The Exxon Valdez was built in 1985/1986 under construction number 438 at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Company in San Diego Bay for the US oil company ExxonMobil and handed over in December 1986.
Technical specifications
The ship was more than 300 meters long, reached a draft of 20 meters, an empty weight of 30,000 tons, displaced 240,000 tons of water when fully loaded and was able to transport 235,000 cubic meters of crude oil . The ship's propulsion system consisted of a slow-running 8-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine that operated on a fixed propeller. The maximum speed of the ship was given as 16.25 knots (30.1 km / h).
Cause of the accident and its effects
The ship became known under its first name, Exxon Valdez , in 1989 . On March 24th of that year it was on its way south from the oil loading station of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the port city of Valdez . Despite a capacity of 210,000 tons, the ship was only loaded with 163,000 tons of crude oil at the time of the accident. Shortly after midnight it hit the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound off South Alaska . ( 60 ° 50 ′ 27.6 ″ N , 146 ° 52 ′ 48 ″ W )
The captain, the alcoholic Joseph Hazelwood , was drunk at the time and was in his chamber. Third officer Gregory Cousins, who was probably overtired by the heavy workload and lack of rest before his watch, was responsible for the bridge. He failed to return the Exxon Valdez to a safe course, as previously agreed with the captain , after deviating from the normal itinerary .
The impact of the disaster on the environment and the economy of the region was greatly aggravated by the fact that the US authorities were not prepared for such a major disaster in terms of organization and support. The coast guard responsible for this stretch of coast was accused of negligence. If the tanker had been monitored by radar, the ship could have been warned of the proximity of the reef in good time. However, the Coast Guard denied this allegation on the grounds that the radar equipment was not working at the time and that a shift change had taken place at the base shortly before.
In the accident, 37,000 tons of crude oil leaked and damaged the sensitive ecosystem . More than 2000 kilometers of coast were contaminated. Hundreds of thousands of fish, sea birds and other animals died as a direct result of the disaster. In the long term, the animals living there gradually poison themselves through food intake, as the oil residues are still not broken down.
As a result of the accident, the USA passed a law ( Oil Pollution Act of 1990 ), according to which all new tankers must have a double hull in order to be allowed to call at US ports.
After the accident
Captain Joseph Hazelwood could not be proven to have committed any criminal conduct and was fined $ 50,000 for illegal oil draining. The Exxon criminal case resulted in a debt trafficking that resulted in Exxon being convicted of a $ 150 million fine, of which 125 million were waived for Exxon's efforts to recover and pay damages, and $ 100 million in criminal restitution. Against Alaska state and federal civil claims, Exxon accepted a commitment to pay $ 900 million over ten years in 1991 with an option through 2006 for an additional $ 100 million in the event of undetected damage. The sum will be used to restore natural resources and will be administered by a board of trustees. The process of a $ 92 million claim to remove the unexpectedly remaining oil under the Option is ongoing. By the time the purge was officially declared to be over in 1992, Exxon had invested another $ 2.2 billion in it. In the civil lawsuit brought by private injured parties, brought as a class action at the request of the defendant oil company , Exxon was sentenced in the first instance in 1994 to pay $ 287 million in damages to more than 32,000 victims, in addition to punitive damages amounting to $ 5 billion. Exxon took further legal action against the latter: Appeals courts set the punitive damages at first at 2.5 billion dollars, and finally in June 2009 at 507.5 million dollars plus 480 million dollars in interest since 1994. This was preceded by the cap on punitive damages in June 2008 by the United States Supreme Court on total compensation paid for actual personal damage suffered of $ 507.5 million. In August 2008, ExxonMobil announced that it would pay 75 percent of the cap amount to the plaintiffs.
The region and its residents did not recover from the damage until 2010.
30 years after the accident, the traces of the incident are still visible. The herring stock in the Sound, which was previously fishable all year round, has still not recovered. Instead, local fisheries rely on salmon, which can only be caught 6 months a year. According to locals, this has made Cordova a city of migrant workers.
Whereabouts of the ship
The ship was returned to service under the name Exxon Mediterranean after a ten-month, $ 30 million repair . In July 1993 it was renamed SeaRiver Mediterranean . Since a US law was passed in 1990 banning ships that have lost more than 4,000 tons of oil from sailing in the disaster area of Alaska , it instead sailed in the Middle and Far East and Australia .
From mid-March 2005 the ship sailed under the flag of the Marshall Islands as Mediterranean . From the summer of 2007 it was converted into an ore carrier in Guangzhou , China , and returned to service in December 2008 under the Panamanian flag as Dong Fang Ocean . After a collision on November 29, 2010 with the ship Aali , it was in the port of Dalian on December 10, 2010. The ship, which was renamed Oriental Nicety in April 2011 , finally returned to service on September 9, 2011.
Scrapping 2012
In March 2012, the ship was sold to Global Marketing Systems, a ship-breaking company, for around US $ 16 million. It was supposed to be scrapped in India . An Indian environmental organization, however, sued against the scrapping in the country because the ship was contaminated with asbestos and heavy metals and its shipment to India was a violation of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal. The country's Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit on July 30, 2012, whereupon the ship was aground on August 2, 2012 on the beach off Alang under the name Oriental N for dismantling.
Valdez principles
Against the backdrop of the disaster, the American non-profit organization CERES developed the following ten principles, which were initially referred to as the Valdez principles and later as the CERES principles. Some large public companies have committed to these principles.
- Protection of the biosphere
- Moderate use of natural raw materials
- Reduction and disposal of waste
- Efficient use of energy
- Health protection for the workplace and the environment
- Safe products and consumer protection
- Liability and Compensation
- Transparency and publication
- At least one environmental expert in management
- Annual report
reception
Movies and TV series
- In 1995 the tanker made a quasi- cameo in the feature film Waterworld : There an old tanker serves as the rusty headquarters of an army of pirates. When the ship and the criminals are sunk, you can read "Exxon Valdez" on the stern. There is also a scene on the tanker, in which an image of Joseph Hazelwood , the captain of the Exxon Valdez to see is
- In the series Duckman , the catastrophe serves as a cynical fantasy system of the "Famous Disasters Mini-Golf Course" (Season 1, Episode 4: "Psycho", March 1994)
- In the series Community , the level of awareness of the Exxon Valdez is used as a benchmark for another oil spill (Season 2, Episode 3)
- In the series A Terribly Nice Family , the main character Al Bundy says of his marriage: "I'm like the Exxon: One small accident and you pay for it for a lifetime"
- On Friends , Phoebe contemplates naming her child Exxon , after which Chandler alludes to Exxon Valdez. (Season 4, Episode 18)
- In the series Top Gear , Richard Hammond refers to James May's car as Exxon Valdez (season 6, episode 2) due to the constant oil loss
- In the series Rockos Modernes Leben , the broken "Noxon Valdiz" is offered for sale in a market. (Season 1, episode 11a, @ 5:50)
Computer games
- In the PC game Duke Nukem 3D ("Atomic Edition", 1996) the oil tanker "Valdeez 2" is in the "Derelict" level.
- In the computer role-playing game Fallout 2 (1997), there is an old oil tanker called Valdez .
- In the strategy game Warcraft 2 , the ship is also alluded to; a cheat that gives the player a certain amount of the resource oil is called Valdez .
painting
- The painter Georg Sternbacher created the series “Unlucky Birds”, material images made of oil and pitch that thematize the suffering of animals due to misfortune.
music
- Exxon Valdez is the title of a song by Achim Reichel on the CD Oha! . For an anniversary in 1996, Achim Reichel was asked by Greenpeace to write a song about a major environmental disaster.
- An Exxon oil tanker is mentioned in the music video of "Blue Sky Mine" by the Australian band Midnight Oil . The band played in 1990 at the protest concert "Black Rain Falls" in front of the Exxon building in New York.
- In the music video of the Scorpions for "Wind of Change" during a compilation of news pictures and the like. a. an aerial view of the wrecked tanker is shown.
- The song "Valdez 27 Million?" By the band 24-7 Spyz is about the accident.
- There is an instrumental piece called “Remember Exxon Valdez” by the formation Dance 2 Trance in collaboration with Stephan Weidner ( Böhse Onkelz ), which was released in 1992 on the album “Moon Spirits”.
- In Ecuador there is a ska-punk band called " El Retorno de Exxon Valdez " (The Return of Exxon Valdez).
- By Frank Zappa is available on the CD The Yellow Shark title Outrage at Valdez . Part of the music was used - in another version - in the documentation Alaska Outrage at Valdez .
- On the album "All We Could Do Was Sing" by the band Port O'Brien from California / Alaska, the last song Valdez is about the oil disaster.
- The rapper Prinz Pi mentions the Exxon Valdez in the moon song .
- The American hip-hop duo Reflection Eternal mentions the Exxon Valdez in the song "Ballad Of The Black Gold" with the lines "Exxon" is at 40 billion a year… .
- The Swedish band September Malevolence released the song Exxon Valdez on their 2008 album After This Darkness, There's a .
Documentaries
- The black death of Paul Seed
- The Alaska Syndrome - Background to an oil spill by Axel Engstfeld
- Alaska Outrage at Valdez by the Cousteau Society, to which Frank Zappa contributed music.
- Black Wave - The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez (2008) by Robert Cornellier and Paul Carvalho
Later documentaries
- Monika Seynsche : The long shadow of an oil catastrophe - The Exxon Valdez accident of 1989 still affects people and the environment , Deutschlandfunk - " Background " from March 22, 2013
See also
Web links
- Greenpeace.de: No compensation for the victims after 16 years.
- A Case Study of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989 ( Memento June 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - Source-based case study in English with background information on oil chemistry
- The legacy of the "Exxon Valdez". On: Wissenschaft.de from May 17, 2006
- The black death came on Good Friday - one day on the 20th anniversary of the catastrophe
- Stick Your Damn Hand In It - 20th Birthday of the Exxon Valdez Lie ( January 16, 2013 memento in the Internet Archive ) - Journalist Greg Palast reports on the anger and desperation of the indigenous people whose livelihoods have been destroyed by oil.
- Image of the Dong Fang Ocean
- 25 years after the oil spill: Alaska cannot forget the “Exxon Valdez”. On: handelsblatt.com of March 24, 2014
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry at Equasis (English, registration required)
- ^ National Transportation Safety Board. 1990. Marine Accident Report: Grounding of the US Tankship Exxon Valdez: on Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound, near Valdez, Alaska, March 24, 1989. Washington, DC: NTSB. NTSB / MAR-90/04, website
- ^ Oil Pollution Act of 1990
- ^ Basler Zeitung, May 26, 2003
- ^ Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, website
- ↑ Announcement by the US Department of Justice
- ↑ Action plan
- ^ Supreme Court decision on Exxon Valdez damages a blow to Alaskans , article by Christopher Maag in the International Herald Tribune, June 26, 2008
- ^ Exxon agrees to pay out 75 percent of Valdez damages , reported by Daisuke Wakabayashi on August 27, 2008 at Reuters.com
- ^ William Yardley: Community's Recovery Still Incomplete After Exxon Valdez Spill. The New York Times , May 5, 2010.
- ↑ Monika Seynsche: The accident of the "Exxon Valdez" off Alaska. In: Calendar sheet. Deutschlandfunk, accessed on March 24, 2019 .
- ^ Equasis
- ↑ Daily port report , September 1, 2009, No. 168, p. 13
- ^ Isaac Arnsdorf, Exxon Valdez to Be Junked Years After Worst US Ship Spill , Bloomberg, March 20, 2012.
- ↑ Exxon Valdez is headed for scrap heap
- ↑ SC gives green signal for beaching of US ship . On: thehindu.com on July 30, 2012.
- ^ Adam Halliday: 23 years after one of history's worst oil spills, Exxon Valdez 'rests' in Gujarat . On: indianexpress.com on August 2, 2012.
- ^ Ceres Principles