Word: exxon
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...steady stream of Hazelwood songs and jokes, the death threats to his family from anonymous callers, some of whom promise to blow the pretty yellow house to smithereens. Whatever respite Hazelwood may have enjoyed as the story faded from the front pages probably ended last week, when the crippled Exxon Valdez, on its way for repairs, caused an 18-mile-long oil slick off San Diego. Suddenly the tanker was thrust back into the headlines...
Fired from Exxon in March in the wake of the Alaska disaster, Hazelwood, 42, is discovering how America treats those it deems to be villains. Newspapers and late-night comics had a field day with early press reports depicting a boozy Hazelwood leaving the bridge of the 987-ft. tanker and turning control over to an unqualified mate. SKIPPER WAS DRUNK, screamed the New York Post. "I was just trying to scrape some ice off the reef for my margarita," chortled comedian David Letterman, suggesting one of Hazelwood's "Top Ten Excuses" for the spill...
...many of the purported facts surrounding the spill and the role of Hazelwood, who faces up to twelve years in prison if convicted of the criminal charges pending against him in Alaska. A two-month TIME investigation of the accident has unveiled a wider web of accountability in which Exxon and the Coast Guard appear to share some of the blame for the worst oil disaster in U.S. history. As the Valdez's captain, Hazelwood will bear the ultimate responsibility for the spill. But whether he was drunk or sober, his actions were not the only cause of the accident...
...Although Exxon claims that it thoroughly monitored Hazelwood after he voluntarily sought treatment for alcoholism, the company repeatedly missed signs that he had continued drinking heavily. Moreover, Exxon supplied low- alcohol beer to tanker crewmen despite its policy of banning drinking aboard its ships...
...complains one of his lawyers, Thomas Russo. "They make people assume that alcohol played a role in the grounding, when it didn't." Drinking has been an important part of Hazelwood's life since his college days, but it did not impede a rapid rise to the top of Exxon's seafaring ranks. Hazelwood long seemed to believe that nothing bad could befall him. As the ironic motto printed next to his picture in his college yearbook put it, "It can't happen...