Timely Reminder - Exxon Still Owes $4.5 Billion For 1989 Valdez Spill

In 11 days, it will be 18 years. Long enough for children to have been born, grown and graduate from high school, for boats to have been scrapped or replaced, for marriages, divorces and career changes, and for a fair number of fishermen to die in one of the many ways life and their chosen occupation offer.

The odd thing is that the day itself -- March 24, 1989 -- has become less momentous to many fishermen than the slow grind of the years that followed. On that date, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound and dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil. Five years later, an Anchorage jury awarded the fishermen and affected communities $5 billion in punitive damages.

Calculated on one year of the oil giant's profits, the class-action award has yet to be paid as ExxonMobil fights it in federal court. Now, with Exxon reaping even more -- $36 billion last year, a world record for a single company -- and another spill anniversary looming without a payment, the 32,000 fishermen, food processors and Alaska natives who remain plaintiffs in the case are seething.

EDIT

"We have compensated in actual damages," ExxonMobil spokesman Mark Boudreaux said. "This is about punitive damages. We don't believe punitive damages are warranted." According to Boudreaux, court records and published reports, Exxon paid $2.3 billion for a cleanup that included 1,300 miles of coastline and an additional $300 million in actual damage claims -- money specifically linked to immediate lost income and property damage.

EDIT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/262707_exxonsettle13.html

Since the Exxon Valdez disaster, I have spent a grand total of 25¢ at Exxon. That was because my tires badly needed air and the no-name independent station I usually went to in those days had a pump that was out of order; the Exxon station was the next closest place and I was pressed for time.