OPINION: Exxon Valdez habitat restoration program must continue until it’s done

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) was one of the most environmentally damaging industrial disasters in world history, and today the coastal ecosystem impacted by the spill remains far from recovered.

After over 30 years and more than $1 billion spent, it is clear that the EVOS restoration program has failed to achieve its goal: “the recovery of all injured resources and services, sustained by healthy, productive ecosystems to maintain naturally occurring diversity.”

The government’s 2014 status of injury update – still the official status today - lists 12 of the 32 monitored resources and services injured by the spill as either “recovering” (e.g., not fully recovered), or “not recovering.” Listed as still recovering are intertidal communities, the AB killer whale pod, sediments, wilderness, passive use, recreation and tourism, commercial fishing, and subsistence. Listed as “not recovering,” after three decades, are herring, marbled murrelets, pigeon guillemots and the genetically distinct AT1 killer whale pod. And there are thousands of gallons of toxic Exxon Valdez oil in beach sediments of Prince William Sound (PWS). In 2015, the Walker and Obama administrations inexplicably abandoned the $92 million government claim presented to Exxon in 2006 by the Murkowski and Bush administrations, pursuant to the Reopener for Unknown Injury provision of the 1991 settlement, that would have addressed this residual oil problem.

And now, the trustee council for the spill under the Biden and Dunleavy administrations just announced its proposal, to be considered at its upcoming Oct. 5 meeting, to simply throw in the towel, end its 30-year habitat protection program altogether, and dole out the remaining funds to politically popular economic development projects with little to no effect on environmental recovery. The government trustees argue that such a move would “ensure a strong and efficient end to the long era of the EVOS Trustee Council.” But if adopted, this would be a profound betrayal of the 1991 court-ordered settlement and public trust.

Recognizing the fundamental truth that we cannot simply repair ecosystems injured by such large-scale environmental disasters, most involved with the Exxon Valdez spill knew from the start that restoring the injured environment to its pre-spill condition would be impossible. The sad truth is that the environment injured by the Exxon Valdez spill will never return to its pre-spill condition, or to the condition it would have been in absent the spill. The best, and least, we can do is to protect the injured ecosystem from additional harm, allowing it to heal to the maximum extent possible on its own. After Exxon Valdez, this was, and remains, our singular scientific, political and moral imperative.

There are two central parts of this challenge: First, doing everything possible to prevent another catastrophic oil spill in Prince William Sound. And on that count, we’ve done remarkably well. The three main improvements in reducing the risk of a repeat spill disaster are Alyeska’s world-class “Ship Escort Response Vessel System,” with powerful rescue and response tugs in escort of every outbound tanker; the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990, mandating double hulls for oil tankers, improved vessel traffic systems, alcohol screening for tanker crews, enhanced financial liability, and other safety measures; and the establishment of the PWS Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, giving local citizens an ongoing role in oversight of the in-region oil industry and government.

But on the second part, preventing other environmental harm to the spill-injured ecosystem, the governments have mostly failed. At the time of the spill, most of us had expected state and federal agencies to try their best on this. Tragically, they haven’t.

The billion-dollar EVOS Restoration program did a spectacular job (spending over $400 million) purchasing critical conservation protections on hundreds of thousands of acres of privately owned fish and wildlife habitat along the coastline of the oil spill region. This effort, largely by the Knowles/Clinton trustee council in the 1990s, has provided arguably the single greatest conservation outcome of the Restoration program to date.

Yet still, after 30 years, this effort is far from complete. There are several critical areas on private coastal lands in the spill region today that remain vulnerable to damaging industrial activities that would compromise ecological recovery, including lands in Kodiak, the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound and the Bering River. These at-risk private lands should be protected for restoration purposes.

Further, government spill trustees continue to ignore the opportunity to establish additional protections on public lands and waters in the oil spill region, something specifically called for in the 1994 Restoration Plan. Given that more than 90% of the injured ecosystem consists of public lands and waters, and that the Restoration Plan requires an “ecosystem approach,” this is a stunning and unacceptable omission from the restoration effort that must be remedied.

For instance, the trustee agencies can and should recommend final congressional designation of the roughly 2 million acre Nellie Juan-College Fjord Wilderness Area in the Chugach National Forest in western Prince William Sound (which has been managed as a Wilderness Study Area since 1980, and was ground zero for nearshore spill impacts); as well as the designation (by executive order under the Antiquities Act) of a North Gulf of Alaska Marine National Monument protecting federal waters (3-200 miles offshore) outside of Prince William Sound, Kenai Fjords National Park, Cook Inlet, Barren Islands and Afognak Island (ground zero for offshore spill impacts). As these areas are already in federal ownership, further protecting them would cost nothing, would further assist ecological recovery, and would constitute another truly historic conservation outcome for the EVOS Restoration program. Such efforts to protect federal lands and waters in the EVOS region would support the Biden “30x30″ goal of protecting 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. In fact, the Biden administration can establish these protections unilaterally, without state support, outside the joint state/federal process. Yet to date, the Biden administration has remained oddly unresponsive to this important Restoration opportunity.

Instead of ending its habitat protection effort at its October meeting, the Trustee Council must redouble its habitat protection effort and finish the job. If the Dunleavy trustees do not support habitat protection, the Biden trustees can and must do so. As the Trustee Council works by unanimous consensus, any trustee holds veto power over any proposal.

If the state trustees continue to push to eliminate the habitat program, the federal trustees should simply withhold support for any/all state proposals for use of the remaining funds. It is time for the federal trustees to play hardball and assert the overwhelming national interest on this important issue.

Finally, the state and federal governments continue to oppose commissioning a credible, independent scientific review by the highly regarded National Academies of Sciences of the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment and restoration programs, to identify lessons learned and improvements needed in addressing the next major oil spill. Evidently, administrators fear criticism, and that government failures would be identified by such a review. But unless and until a credible, independent, science review is completed, the next time we have a major marine oil spill in U.S. waters, the government will almost certainly make the same mistakes (and there have been many in both programs), leading to the loss of billions of public dollars, and the conduct of a less effective damage assessment and Restoration process.

We owe it to the millions of innocent beings killed, injured, and that continue to be injured by the Exxon Valdez oil spill to do everything we can to help the ecosystem heal. The Restoration job isn’t over until we’ve done our best, our effort to date remains far short of that goal, and we must continue until we’re done – no matter how long that takes.

Those wanting to comment on any of this can do so before Oct. 5 at the Trustee Council’s website.

Rick Steiner is a marine conservation biologist in Anchorage. He was the University of Alaska’s marine adviser for the Prince William Sound region from 1983-1996 in Cordova, and he continues to advise on oil spill prevention, response and restoration.

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