ers, virtually all Alaskans have seen their futures rearranged by the six year saga that followed the largest petroleum spill in North America. Despite the $5 billion punitive damages judgment (equal to twice the state's 1994 government budget) against Exxon Corp. to Prince William Sound residents and businesses (10,000 of whom were commercial fishermen), Alaskans worry about the deep, potentially long-term harm done to the state's two biggest industries: fish and oil. After the spill, facing an angry and skeptical public, flatly dismissed all considerations of allowing oil exploration to continue in Alaska's last big oil field, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Regrettably, many residents have reconciled themselves to the fact that Alaska's golden promise of financial opportunity may never be quite the same.
The history of Exxon Valdez began, in a sense, with the discovery of oil saturated sands 8,708 feet beneath the tundra of Alaska's North slope in January 1969. Further test wells confirmed a pool of at least ten billion barrels of oil and 26 trillion cubic feet of gas- one of the world's largest accumulation of these resources. Within three years, oil companies paid a record $900 million to the federal government for leases on the North Slope. Oil companies wanted, and prevailed, in having an 800-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay at the edge of the Arctic Ocean to Valdez in Prince William Sound. The oil companies' intent was to pick up oil at the pipeline's terminus in Valdez and transport it through the remote, though abundant, waters of Prince William Sound. With storms, drifting ice, narrow passages and submerged reefs, these were treacherous waters in which cumbersome, oil-laden tankers would have to maneuver. If careless, an accident could devastate colonies of sea birds and kill eagles, sea otters, seals, salmon, whales, and other creatures.
The federal government has environmental protection responsibilities, and is...