Recently in Exxon Valdez Category

US oil executives can work to distance themselves from BP's Macondo disaster all they want, but they will still be joined at the hip when all the debate boils down to answering THE ultimate question that now faces offshore drilling.

ExxonMobil said in a recent statement that the Valdez accident (it does not refer to it as the Exxon Valdez accident) "was the lowest point in the company's 125 year history."

The 11 million gallon crude spill on March 24, 1989 from the supertanker Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound cost Exxon (now ExxonMobil) about $4 billion in clean up costs; settlements with the state and federal government; compensation to Alaskans and businesses injured by the spill; and damages to thousands of residents who sued the company. Had the industry made similar investments in prevention and response prior to the spill, perhaps its impact would have been far less devastating.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill into Alaska's Prince William Sound twenty years ago was a product of complacency, government and industry negligence, and human failure.

"The State of Alaska, the federal government, the oil industry - they had all become complacent," said Valdez tour boat operator Stan Stephens. "Things had been going pretty well and nobody wanted to spend money if there were no problems."