Word: exxon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...commercial salmon catch in the sound this season was only 61% of the average for the past two years. Says Raymond Cesarini, president of Sea Hawk Seafoods in Valdez: "It's been a hideous year for us." Cesarini, who filed a lawsuit against Exxon, says he had expected to process 14 million lbs. of fish but got only 3 million. On a positive note, the three large commercial fish hatcheries in the spill's path were protected, and millions of salmon returned in late summer to spawn in glacial streams along the sound...
Antipathy toward Exxon threatens to obscure the fact that it mounted the largest response ever to an oil spill. The effort was like organizing an infantry division from scratch and deploying it in battle within 60 days. At the cleanup's peak, Exxon marshaled more than 1,400 boats, 85 aircraft and 11,300 people. With that mobilization came such daily logistic headaches as providing 200 tons of food and disposing of 1,400 gal. of human waste in a remote and unforgiving environment. "I think Exxon did a hell of a job," says David Usher, whose firm Marine Pollution...
...spraying the fertilizer Inipol to promote the growth of naturally occurring microbes on the cobbled beaches where rocks were slathered with oil. Certain bacteria "eat" oil, but they grow slowly in Alaska because of the cool water temperatures. Inipol speeds the reproduction of the oil-consuming organisms, and once Exxon began spraying it on with pump-driven wands, beaches showed considerable improvement. "I was impressed with Smith Island," says biologist Jill Parker of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Before, you couldn't walk on it. It looks so much better." Exxon treated some 70 miles of shoreline with Inipol...
After an embarrassing false start, during which workers futilely hand scrubbed individual rocks, Exxon refined some techniques that show promise for future oil-spill cleanups. The omni-sweep, a spray nozzle at the end of a 100- ft.-long mechanical arm, allowed workers to hose steep shorelines that were otherwise inaccessible. High-temperature, high-pressure rinses proved moderately effective in scouring oil-fouled rocky beaches, but they killed intertidal creatures such as barnacles and snails. Coast Guard Captain David Zawadzki compares the process with chemotherapy...
...necessary because beaches often became re-oiled. In many cases oil that had seeped down through shoreline sediments to a depth of as much as three feet was pumped back to the surface by 15-ft. tides. "We treated some of those areas as many as seven times," says Exxon spokesman David Sexton. In all, the company says, it recovered 61,000 bbl. of the 260,000 spilled. The $1 billion spent on the cleanup translates into $390 for each gallon of oil recovered...