Term Paper on "Public Relations Aspect of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill"

Term Paper 6 pages (1700 words) Sources: 1+

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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Public Relations Aspect of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, which occurred on March 24, 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground and leaked oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, was the largest marine oil spill in North America (Davis pp). Roughly one-quarter of the cargo, some 10.8 million gallons or 258,000 barrels, or 38,800 tons of crude oil was spilled, of which some ultimately coated 1,200 miles of coastline, up to more than 470 miles away from the site of the spill (Davis pp). And although no human deaths occurred, twenty communities and a rich natural environment were affected (Davis pp). As Nancy Davis points out, the disaster "generated considerable emotional energy, massive sums of money, a flurry of new jobs, a gaggle of regulations, and extensive, continuing litigation" (Davis pp).

Robert Gramling and William R. Freudenburg noted that eleven and a half years elapsed between the first major oil discovery on the North Slope and the beginning of oil transportation from Valdez, and then another eleven and a half years before the first major oil spill happened on Thigh Reef in 1989 (Davis pp).

They also note that most Alaskan citizens did not know that Exxon was one of the seven companies sharing the facility, and in fact, at the time of the accident, there were only thirty-five Exxon employees in the state, compared to 2,600 ARCO employees (Davis pp). Gramling and Freudenburg believe that this fact may have made a difference to subsequent developments: "lacking much contact with Alaska, Exxon's leaders did not know the cultural complexities and diversity present among the Alaskan population," nor did the native population in the samll communities know much about Exxon or the complex business structures and cultural characteristics of its corporate world (Davis pp).

Environmental concerns were an integral part of the building and negotiation phases of the Alaskan pipeline, and numerous safeguards were included, however over years, an "atrophy of vigilance" had developed and many of the precautions had been relaxed, such as equipment maintenance, and a number of personnel had been reduced (Davis pp). This lax attitude was partly due to the oil industry's safety record, and years of trouble-free operation, after all tankers had passed through the Valdez Arm some 8,700 times with a mishap (Davis pp). Thus, when the spill occurred, it became "a benchmark event in the public perception of technological hazards," that highlighted just how "lax different organizations with fragmented responsibilities had become" (Davis pp).

At the time, the Exxon Valdez was the largest ship ever built by the National Steel and Ship Building Company for the world's largest oil company, measuring 987 feet long, 166 feet wide, and 88 feet deep from the main deck, and with the aid of computerized equipment, Joseph Hazelwood and his twenty man crew could transport up to 1.48 million barrels of crude oil per voyage (Davis pp).

Davis points out that during the first days of the accident, Exxon was more concerned about offloading the remaining oil from the ship, while the fisherman were worried about the oil already flowing (Davis pp). Although boats and crews were in place to begin work, oil-containment and recovery equipment was not available, and so for several days, the oil continued to pour out of the tanker (Davis pp). While at the same time during the first few days, debates about the use of chemical dispersants were taking place, and by the time they were resolved, a storm had begun moving the oil away from the vicinity of Thigh reef (Davis pp). Then began the severe loss of marine life, of which years later, damage assessment continues and the total impacts are still not full known (Davis pp). More than fifty loss studies were undertaken after the accident, some reporting up to 580,000 seabirds killed, while others estimated deaths of 300,000 seabirds and some 5,500 sea otters (Davis pp). Four days after the accident, bird and otter rescue centers had opened, with restoration cost of about $80,000 for each otter (Davis pp). According to Davis, "at the height of clean-up activity in 1989 more than 11,000 workers, 1,400 vessels, and 80 aircraft were at work in the region" (Davis pp).

David notes that the Exxon Valdez oil spill was not only an industrial accident, but a "technological and organizational disaster" as well (Davis pp).

She claims the physical problems were "magnified by organizational confusion of responsibility, allocation of authority, and decision-making" (Davis pp). According to Per Bak and Kan Chen, the Valdez spill is a classic example of "self-organized criticality," in which the accumulated "complexities of technology, people, and organizations had reach a critical state" (Davis pp). In other words, it only took one small error within this incredibly complex industry to bring the walls tumbling down, as the "oil flowed, the plans failed, the storms came, the inadequacies of regulations, surveillance, equipment, and organizations were highlighted" (Davis pp).

In Managing Risk Issues vs. Managing Risk: Energy Pipeline Communications & Public Awareness Program, Alan Roth says that the Exxon Valdez oil spill is still one of the "most commonly-evoked buzzwords of environmental disaster and an enduring symbol of the risks associated with the marine transportation of oil" (Roth pp). The only thing worse than a crisis is the mishandling of a crisis, and case studies show that management most often responds to a crisis or brewing controversy with denial:

denial that the issues being raised by outside interests are significant or that the external parties have any business in the matter anyway; denial that the technicalities of the risk factors should be open to discussion by non-experts; and, denial that the 'public' really needs to be part of the process (Roth pp).

Roth says that it is not hard to find examples of potentially manageable issues that ended up as corporate disasters because no one recognized the risks (Roth pp). According to Roth, the 1989 Exxon Valdez was a public relations disaster due to the way in which Exxon Shipping Company executives handled the situation from the beginning (Roth pp). They did not immediately take a visible stance in dealing with the spill, nor did they express any compassion or empathy concerning the consequences that were happening to the state of Alaska (Roth pp). Moreover, the leaders of the company "imparted no impression of swift, decisive action through the media" (Roth pp). And had the accident been handled differently, Exxon's reputation might well have been enhanced, rather than damaged (Roth pp).

The industry's insistence on having its own way regarding the regulation of the Valdez tanker trade, and the government's incremental accession to industry pressure, culminated into a disastrous system failure (Details pp). The general public reacted with anger over the environmental damage and the mar upon the Alaskan wilderness (Details pp). The Exxon spill remains on the list of the world's largest oil spills during the past twenty-five years, and has come to be seen as the nation's largest environmental disaster, since Three Mile Island (Details pp). During the 1950's, tankers carried a crew of 40 to 42 to manage about 6.3 million gallons of oil, while the Valdez carried a crew of 19 to transport 53 million gallons (Details pp). The U.S. Coast Guard sets the minimum vessel manning limits, but without any agency wide standard for policy, and Exxon tankers had been certified by the Coast Guard for a minimum of 15 crew members (Details pp). Frank Larossi, president of Exxon Shipping Company, stated that policy was to reduce standard crew complement to 16 on fully automated, diesel-powered vessels by 1990 (Details pp). The manning report stated "While Exxon has defended their actions as an economic decision, criticism has been leveled against them for manipulating overtime records to better justify reduced manning levels" (Details pp).

In the May 08, 1989 issue of Fortune, Marshall Loeb published an interview with Exxon CEO Lawrence Rawl just weeks after the oil spill. Rawl said that if the accident proved anything, "it's that you need someone in charge who can move quickly without a lot of recriminations" (Loeb pp). When asked if whether visiting the site himself would have improved Exxon's image, Rawl replied that he was in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation (Loeb pp). However, he confessed that from a public relations standpoint, it would have been better for him to have gone to the oil spill site in Alaska (Loeb pp). Asked if he thought it would have helped had he been more visible early on in the crisis, Rawl said that in hindsight it would have helped, and that some of the media were now comparing the spill to Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol problem in 1982 or Union Carbide's Bhopal plant disaster in 1984 (Loeb pp).

Rawl also said that since 1977 the company has had a policy on alcohol abuse and that after the first drink the captain took after being rehabilitated, he should have… READ MORE

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