Hazelwood completed an alcohol treatment program but dropped out of a prescribed follow-up program, stopped attending AA meetings and resumed drinking, among many other places in parking lots, at ports and aboard Exxon oil tankers. Exxon executives, knowing Hazelwood had started drinking again, ignored repeated warnings and placed him in charge of the Exxon Valdez.
At trial Exxon claimed Hazelwood was "the most highly monitored person in the Exxon fleet". Exxon was unable to provide the jury with so much as a single scrap of paper documenting this astounding claim. In fact, Exxon was unable to document that it monitored Hazelwood at all, in spite of numerous reports of Hazelwod's drinking, including one lodged one week before the accident.
At the time of the accident, Hazelwood's driver's licenses had been revoked in two states for multiple drunk driving convictions. Hazelwood wasn't even allowed to drive a compact Chevrolet six blocks to the neighborhood grocery. This is the man Exxon placed in charge of its largest oil supertanker in an environmentally sensitive area.
Exxon fired Hazelwood and claimed it should not be held legally responsible for his actions. Exxon executives, the parties actually responsible for this disaster, weren't fired. Instead, they received raises and bonuses.
Many Americans would claim the facts of this case support a finding of maliciousness and justify the $5 billion award. But this sordid history of Captain Hazelwood doesn't explain the true cause of the disaster.
Within eight years after beginning operations, over 800 million barrels of oil had been shipped through Valdez, establishing that the real estate under the tanker terminal was worth several hundred million dollars.
In 1969 Humble Oil officers, being capitalists, had offered to purchase the tank terminal site. The Chugach Natives, being humane, offered to sell the site for $1 and refused to accept a higher payment. With one condition: That Humble promise to protect their fishing and hunting grounds from contamination.
In 1971 specific safeguards were agreed upon. Humble promised to have them incorporated into federal law. These promises were written into the 1974 Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, which allowed shipment of oil from Valdez. The commitments were crucial to enactment. The bill passed the Senate only because of a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Agnew.
Exxon promised to use modern on-board radar. At the time of the accident the radar wasn't turned on. The "modern radar unit" had been broken for over a year. Exxon management knew but refused to make repairs, to save Exxon money.
Exxon promised to use only double-hull tankers. The Exxon Valdez was a single-hull ship that could not legally even enter Prince William Sound.
Exxon promised to use local pilots when transiting the sound. The local pilot exited the Exxon Valdez shortly after the ship sailed, to save Exxon money.
Exxon promised that escort tugs would be provided for all tanker trips. No escort tugs had been provided, to save Exxon money.
Exxon promised to have equipment readily available to contain and capture a 200,000-barrel spill. The equipment was not maintained and kept readily available because it had never even been purchased, to save Exxon money.
Exxon promised to maintain spill-response teams in a state of readiness around the clock. Local Chugach Natives were hired, trained and then fired two years later, in 1979. State inspectors were deceived by creation of sham emergency response teams, listing names of workers at the tank farm. Those workers were never trained on the equipment that was never purchased and in some cases were never even told of their duties or responsibilities.
Two minutes before the accident, while the ship was making a tricky course correction maneuver, Hazelwood turned on the autopilot, increased the ship's speed and left an unlicensed, inexperienced third mate in charge while he "retired to his cabin to do paperwork".
The third mate was in violation of federal law that required he have six hours off-duty in the 12-hour period prior to beginning his watch. The National Transportation Safety Board determined crew fatigue to be a contributing factor to the accident. Partially because Exxon reduced tanker crew size from four to three, to save money, and didn't add a fourth crew member until four years after the accident.
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