TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040290/0402106.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.8 KB | 83 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

First Mess Up, Then Mop Up


Hazelwood is ordered to help cleanse Alaska's shoreline


    In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill last March,
Captain Joseph Hazelwood was widely viewed as America's
Environmental Enemy No. 1. As the dimensions of the catastrophe
in Prince William Sound came into focus, people had little
trouble deciding where their sympathies lay: with the seabirds
and otters suffering and dying in the oil-laden waters, not
with the hard-drinking skipper who was in his cabin doing
paperwork when his tanker plowed into Bligh Reef.

    What a difference a year makes. Bursts of applause erupted
in Courtroom C of Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage last week,
as the jury acquitted Hazelwood on the three most serious
charges stemming from the accident. After almost eight weeks
and a dizzying parade of witnesses, the prosecution managed to
win a conviction on only a relatively insignificant misdemeanor
charge: negligent discharge of oil. Judge Karl Johnstone,
miffed that Hazelwood had never apologized for his role in the
spill, sentenced him to 1,000 hours of cleanup labor and
$50,000 restitution  to the state, but suspended a 90-day jail
sentence and a $1,000 fine. His lawyers vowed to appeal. Had
the defrocked skipper been found guilty on all charges, which
included a felony count of criminal mischief and misdemeanor
counts of intoxication and recklessness, he could have faced
more than seven years in prison and $60,000 in fines. "I'm just
relieved," said Hazelwood.

    Ultimately, Hazelwood's fate turned on one question: whether
he was drunk at the time of the accident. Witnesses testified
that they had seen the captain drinking in Valdez bars on the
afternoon before his ship set sail. The prosecution also
introduced tests taken eleven hours after the crash that showed
Hazelwood with a blood-alcohol level of 0.061%, higher than the
Coast Guard's 0.04% limit for a seaman operating a moving
vessel. But Hazelwood's lawyers suggested he might have imbibed
after the accident occurred to settle his badly shattered
nerves. The captain never took the witness stand. In the end
the jury decided the evidence was too ambiguous for a
conviction.

    What is clear is that oil is still tainting much of the
coastline in the sound and the Gulf of Alaska. After a
helicopter tour last week, Alaska Governor Steve Cowper
announced that the state would take a more aggressive role in
the ongoing cleanup effort. That is not welcome news for Exxon.
The company has spent $2 billion so far on the cleanup, has
been indicted by the Federal Government for allowing an
incompetent crew to operate the tanker and has replaced
Hazelwood in many hearts and minds as the real culprit in the
tragedy.

    Hazelwood's curious journey from villain to victim is not
yet complete. The Coast Guard is expected to seek the
revocation of his captain's license, and he remains a
co-defendant with his former employer in more than 100 civil
damage suits that will keep lawyers overpaid for years. After
the jury rendered its verdict, Hazelwood talked wistfully about
going back to sea. "That's what I do," he said. His attorney
suggested he might even try to persuade Exxon to reinstate his
client as skipper of an oil tanker. As unlikely as that now
seems, no one can dismiss the surprising reversal of perception
that last week's verdict seemed to confirm. Said Mei Mei Evans,
coordinator of an Alaska-based coalition of environmentalists
called the Oil Reform Alliance: "Exxon and Hazelwood are just
two agents in a very complicated and very flawed system of
extraction and transportation of petroleum."


By Paul A. Witteman.