20th Anniversary of Exxon Valdez

Well, I'm only a few days behind here as Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of the tragic 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

There have been a slew of articles across the web these past days, evidence perhaps of an important and ongoing debate as to the guilt or error of the Texas-based Oil company (who netted $48 billion last year alone) and, more to the point, of the inherent dangers of our world-wide oil addiction. As this brief piece from the NYTimes notes, "Still, there are lots of important questions related to humanity’s 150-year love affair with petroleum. Can expanded oil extraction take place responsibly in Arctic waters? Should the United States drill more in its own waters to rely less on oil from, say, Nigeria?" These important questions generally slip in and out of our collective consciousness, but I hope that the memory of events such as this can help us to re-member a different way of being in the world.


One other interesting feature as noted on the website of the ITOPF (the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation - yes, this actually exists) is that the Exxon Valdez was not one of the major spills in the recent past - not even in the top 10! In fact, it is #35 in the worst spills on recent record. In first place, and occurring just 10 years prior to Exxon Valdez, is the Atlantic Empress, which collided with another boat in July of 1979 and exploded. The boat caught fire and a vigorous fight was brought to extinguish it. It was then towed towards deeper water by tugboats, but a week later massive explosions erupted again and the oil slick surrounding the boat caught fire. The tow line was dropped and the whole thing burned for another week before sinking into deep water.
See the map below for locations of many of the 'top' spills in recent years.

As the article claims, "Nobody will ever know what was burned and what was dispersed by the sea. No significant shore pollution was recorded on the nearest islands. No impact study was carried out, either by the surrounding countries, or the international community, as awareness regarding marine pollution was less developed then than it is today." This is a significant point. For as surely as the Exxon Valdez spill was major (37,000 TONS of crude is still quite a lot to pour into our waterways, even when compared to its larger counterparts) the attention it attracted was, in part, due to its proximity to our home. The same year as the Exxon spill, another spill double in size occurred just North of the Canary Islands, but it didn't wash over nearly 400 miles of Alaskan shoreline.

Doug Struck, a writer who covered the original spill for The Baltimore Sun has written this article which argues that the effects of the spill continue still 20 years later. "The Trustee Council found 17 of 27 monitored species have not recovered. For example, researchers concluded that the high-pressure hoses used on the beaches did more harm than good. The pressure destroyed interlocking layers of gravel and flushed away fine sediments that scientists now know provided a kind of armor for the beaches during storms, helping to protect clams and mussels. The damage to the shellfish, in turn, slowed the recovery of otters, which feed on the mollusks."

What might we learn? Without getting preachy, I think there are 3 important points to be taken here.

1. As in First Aid, the first rule is "Do No Harm". Our hubris often blinds us to this as we rush in to 'save the planet'. An analogous example hails from our relationships with one another. I have found myself continually making the 'new husband' mistake of rushing in to 'fix' whatever seems to be ailing Roxy before taking time to listen and learn the intricacies and complexities of her day, what and who might be involved, etc. It is rather likewise with our nonhuman neighbors. While technology is a great help - we can disperse quite a bit of oil that would otherwise sit on top of the ocean - we must be slow and careful in utilizing it. What is frightening to me is our capacity to swoop in and miss the bigger picture is even greater in the case of the environment than in our marriages. (The clams and mussels under the sand don't pipe up and say 'hey you idiots, don't power-wash our house or you'll kill us!' whereas my wife has no problem telling me I'm being a jerk and not listening to her.) Listening is key, and learning the languages which are spoken. We need (each of us) to develop what David Orr calls 'ecological literacy'. Perhaps if we have ears to hear even the rocks will cry out.

2. Related to the first point, prevention and good old-fashioned wisdom are paramount. This has immediate import when we hear of plans to open up drilling in the Arctic or in a more local example - the possibility of building a pipeline across BC. We must think carefully 'what is the worst case scenario?' and not let our own hubris - as in 'technology can fix it' - get in the way. Some good old fashioned wisdom is in order here, as always. Any reader of Proverbs ought to know where the beginning of wisdom is found. Recalling our humanness is central to understanding our place in the world.

3. The Creation is a complex entity of which we are but one part. Certainly we hold a special role in creation, but we are prone to cause great pain and confusion if we consider our special place in the creation somehow 'primary' or 'more important' than the whole. We live in an ecosystem - eco- derives from the Greek Oikos, meaning 'household'. The doctrine of creation tells us that God is Creator and we are His creation. He has made all of it, every nook and cranny. (Have a glance at the Psalms or the latter part of Job for starters!) It is truly our household.

Yet it is more, for the 'environment' which 'environs' us is also within us, in some profound ways. Scripture tells us it is out of the very dust of this good creation that we ourselves are made - we are adam (mankind) from adamah (the earth), human from humus. We are, as Loren Wilkinson likes to put it, 'earthlings'. Faithfulness to God involves our coming to know who we our and our place in the world just as we must know who God is and what is His place in our world.