Don't Buy Exxon's Fable Of The Drunken Captain

[soothsayer]

Link to tweet

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Greg Palast
@Greg_Palast
The Raycas radar on the #ExxonValdez was TURNED OFF — despite the agreement with the Chugach Natives to use state-of-the-art radar.

Don’t Buy Exxon’s Fable Of The Drunken Captain
gregpalast.com
https://t.co/xE6aU6myo3?amp=1

Snip

Today, March 24, the 32nd Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster will be commemorated with the re-telling of lies. The official story is, “Drunken Skipper Hits Reef.” Don’t believe it....

This story remains untold: the true cause of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe was the oil giant’s breaking their promises to the Natives and Congress, cynically and disastrously, in the fifteen years leading up to the spill.

As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker’s radar was left broken and disabled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate....

Several smaller oil spills before the Exxon Valdez could have warned of a system breakdown. But Erlene Blake, a former Senior Lab Technician with Alyeska, the Exxon/BP consortium, told our investigators that management routinely ordered her to toss out test samples of water evidencing spilled oil. She was ordered to refill the test tubes with a bucket of clean sea water called, “The Miracle Barrel.”

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Much much more

[fescuerescue]

1. Wouldn't that still be an error attributable to the Captain?

I mean at this point, what difference does it make?

The ship broke open due to errors that the Captain and Exxon made. What the precise error was doesn't make a difference to the seabirds.

I think at this point, everyone knows what happened. Exxon messed up bad.

[gladium et scutum]

4. The Cptain always bears the ultimate reesponsibility

whether the radar, if operational, would have prevented the grounding is purely speculation. Remember both the Stockholm and the Andrea Doria had radars in good operating condition

[taxi]

5. It is only about the Captain if you think he was different from everyone else.

We cannot blame the whole environmental disaster on a single person. There is an oversized demand for petroleum, and green energy has faced enormous restrictions through the policies of our government. Had it not been this one man.
So next time it won't be. It will be a different man in a different place. I think there is a bigger problem.

[fescuerescue]

6. If we blame everyone in the world

I'm not sure that is going help things.

[taxi]

7. You're right.

Myself, I don't blame anyone for the Exxon Valdez spill. It bugs me when I think about it. In a lecture series on People and Cultures of the World examples of what is important and what isn't depends on where you are. I could burden myself with some false sense of being right for something, or with shame for being wrong. I could have driven the speed limit and used less fuel. Was I a part of where our thirst for more and more drove the world to need a supertanker to carry all that oil. And it better do it quick.
So, do you still blame the Captain?

[soothsayer]

10. Ok but you don't have realistic alternatives because big oil buys politicians

So... yeah it’s everyone’s fault but in this case Exxon’s in particular.

[taxi]

11. Do you think the tanker stuck in the Suez Canal will end up being a contained HazMat area? nt

[gratuitous]

2. This should have been a death penalty offense for Exxon

But thanks to Republicans, we continue to let corporations be the judge of whether they followed the rules they agreed to.

[taxi]

9. There are many things

that our side needs to get the upper hand on. Someone must be making a list already.

[rickyhall]

3. When it's safety vs. profit, profit usually wins.

[TheBlackAdder]

8. Drunken Skipper Hits Reef -- Third Mate Exceeded His Talent and Didn't Say or Do Anything.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. Well, well, well... that's a big reveal for me!

I haven't followed the story much, except soon after it happened and the TV news was constantly demonizing only the captain.