Alaskan Oil Spill

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Alaskan Oil Spill Ashley Ragland

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Alaskan Oil Spill. Ashley Ragland . What Happened?. March 23, 1989 at 9:15pm, the 986-foot Exxon Valdez, 2 nd newest vessel out of the company’s 20-tanker fleet, left the Trans Alaska Pipeline terminal in Prince William Sound, Alaska - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Transcript of Alaskan Oil Spill

Page 1: Alaskan Oil Spill

Alaskan Oil SpillAshley Ragland

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What Happened?

March 23, 1989 at 9:15pm, the 986-foot Exxon Valdez, 2nd newest vessel out of the company’s 20-tanker fleet, left the Trans Alaska Pipeline terminal in Prince William Sound, Alaska

William Murphy, an expert ship's pilot and Captain Joe Hazelwood had the responsibility to get 53,094,510 mill gallons (1,264,155 barrels) to Los Angeles, California

The ship took a different route in attempt to avoid ice but failed March 24, 1989 at 12:04 a.m. the vessel hit the Bligh Reef spilling over

11million gallons of its 53 million gallon cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude oil Out of the 11 tanks, 8 were damaged and impacted approximately 1,300

miles of the Alaskan shoreline. 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools could be filled with amount of oil spilled

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WeaknessesPublic relations team did a poor job handling the after mathDamaged their public image extensively by not immediately

issuing a public statement and not owning up to the mistakeCompany was not responding fast enoughExxon’s top executives didn’t comment on accident for almost a

week after the spill Public statements by the company sometimes contradicted

information from other sources

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Weaknesses cont. Exxon's chairman, Lawrence G. Rawl, sent a series of lower ranking

executives to the scene instead of dealing with it personally Gave the impression this problem was not important enough to have

the attention of the top executives. Made the company look week and looked like they didn’t want to

take control of the situation. Exxon news briefings were based only in Valdez

Small town with limited communications resources Made spreading information through the media difficult. Failed to update its media relations people world wide

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Interesting Quote/Fact

''All crises have a window of opportunity to gain control of 45 minutes to 12 hours,'’

-Paul Shrivastava

director of the Industrial Crisis Institute

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Attempt To Change The ImageExxon's chairman, Lawrence G. Rawl’s 1st statement was

made six days after the accidentVisited Alaska on April 14,three weeks after the event

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Media

Ran a world wide newspaper ad 10 days after the spill apologizing for the incident but not accepting responsibility

Ad appeared to be a cliché did not address the questions about Exxon's conduct

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Success Rawl pledged to clean everything up

He visited news bureaus to explain what the company would do, He answered whatever questions were asked Turned the companies image around Within 24

In 1994 a jury awarded $287 million to compensate for economic losses $5 billion awarded punitive damages due to company's "reckless"

behavior Exxon has only paid $15,000 in compensation per claimant Close to 8,000 people or 1/4 of the plaintiff have died waiting to be

compensated

Spent the last 14 years appealing the verdict, In 2006, a court cut the damages in half to $2.5 billion

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Success contThe chosen public relations strategy made the ecological

nightmare worse They hosed scorching hot water at high pressure on the shoreline Scientists thought this plan "poison to the beach and area's many

animals"

Since the disaster The company's public relations campaign revolves around "earth scientists"

Exxon's staff to doesn't’t take responsibility for environmentalists' claims of ecological damage

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Irreversible Damage In first year most of the visible damage was washed away but

the environment is still feeling the effects Scientists noted higher death rates among sea otters Other species growth has been stunted along with other

damage When species procreated, they carried mutations and disease with

them Over 32 thousand people unable to make a living with commercial

fishing Caused over $300 million of economic damage

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Irreversible Damage cont  Decrease in Tourism spending

8% in south central Alaska 35% in southwest Alaska in the year after the spill. loss of 9,400 visitors and $5.5 million spent by the state

Pink salmon eggs were still being effected by oil remains on stones of stream banks up until 1993

Southwestern part of Prince William Sound lost 1.9 million (28%) of its potential stock of wild pink salmon.

Oil is still found on half of the 91 arbitrarily elected beaches surveyed 12 years later

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Death Toll 250,000 -500,000 (90 species), seabirds died after the

disaster 900 bald eagles 300 harbor seals 1,000 harlequin ducks

14 killer whales

2,800 sea otters

Billions of salmon and herring eggs

4 human deaths associated with cleanup

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References

Cleveland, C. J. (2010, June 9). Exxon Valdez oil spill. Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://www.eoearth.org/article/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill?topic=58075

Details About the Accident. (1990, February). Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/details.cfm

Exxon Valdez. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://www.epa.gov/osweroe1/content/learning/exxon.htm

Holusha, J. (1989, April 21). Exxon's Public-Relations Problem. Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://crisiscommunications.ning.com/notes/Exxon_Valdez

Smith, S. (2008, March 14). The Exxon Valdez Disaster Goes On. Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://socialistworker.org/2008/03/14/exxon-valdez

West, L. (n.d.). Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Retrieved April 8, 2013, from http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/p/exxon_valdez.htm