Exxon's Attitude Problem

By Barbara Rudolph

Is Exxon plagued by bad luck or a bad attitude? After suffering three major accidents in just the past ten months, the largest U.S. oil company is earning a reputation as a careless and callous despoiler of the environment. Last week Exxon ran into a storm of criticism from New York State and New Jersey authorities when it was disclosed that the company's shoddy equipment and poor maintenance procedures helped cause one of the largest oil spills in the region's history. On New Year's Day a 12-in. pipeline running under the Arthur Kill waterway, which separates Staten Island and New Jersey, ruptured and spewed out 567,000 gal. of No. 2 heating oil. Much of the fuel drifted into surrounding wetlands, which serve as a rookery for rare wading birds.

"This is a mini-Alaska," declared New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, referring to last year's 11 million-gal. spill from the Exxon Valdez.

Appallingly, Exxon workers were warned of the possibility of a rupture but did not act. The pipeline, which connects an Exxon refinery with storage tanks, had a leak-detection system in place that flashed an alarm when the accident occurred. But instead of shutting down the pipeline, which would have kept the spill to a minuscule amount, employees failed to take the alarm seriously for nearly six hours. Reason: the safety system was known to be defective and had frequently sent out false alarms.

Exxon's mop-up team did earn modest praise for its effectiveness in soaking up some of the oil with cotton booms. By week's end Exxon had recovered about 130,000 gal., but the damage remains to be calculated. More than 300 birds have died, and if the oil destroys the area's marine organisms, several species of migratory birds may starve to death when they arrive in the spring for breeding.

Authorities in New Jersey have filed a lawsuit against Exxon, and New York officials threatened to do so but held off when the oil company agreed to assume some liability for the spill. Both states want the oil giant to pay compensation for damage to the environment and reimbursement for the governments' cost of helping in the cleanup. Exxon's environmental bills are mounting. The company has spent more than $1 billion in its efforts to clean up the Valdez spill, and is being sued for billions of dollars more by the state of Alaska, the fishing industry and other aggrieved parties.

Besides the two spills, Exxon suffered an explosion and fire in late December at a major Louisiana oil refinery. To many Exxon critics, the string of accidents suggests that the company stubbornly refuses to embrace a policy of safety and prevention. Says Albert Appleton, New York City's new commissioner of environmental protection: "Exxon has a corporate philosophy that the environment is some kind of nuisance problem and a distraction from the real business of moving oil around." Last week Exxon named Edwin Hess, a senior vice president, to the new post of vice president in charge of environment and safety. Never before has the company assigned those issues to such a high-ranking executive.

With reporting by Martha Smilgis/New York