Recommendations

Based on our experience with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, we propose the following recommendations to strengthen oil pollution prevention, spill response preparation, protection for hazardous waste spill responders, and redress for sick Exxon Valdez cleanup workers.

Recommendation #1: The spiller should not be left in charge of the cleanup; all spills should be federalized.

                The government should have immediate access to spill response and damage assessment funds through the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund or some other dedicated funding account that is reimbursable by the spiller. The government could offer discounts off the full cost of the spill studies to encourage prompt payments and discourage lawsuits. Costs of spill cleanup should not be tax-deductible. The federal government should calculate spill volume to assess penalties. The spiller should not be involved with damage assessment studies or with worker health and safety programs. Federalizing oil spill cleanups has been successfully done in other countries such as Norway that value their coasts, their seaports, and their sea-based economies.

Recommendation #2: Response preparation should include revised guidelines for dispersant use and stockpiling of equipment.

                The federal government and oil industry should assume the full responsibility and liability for human health costs of dispersant use. Instead of putting liability disclaimers on dispersant products, the EPA should only list products that have passed independent and verifiable toxicity and effectiveness testing, without averaging the effectiveness on two vastly different crude oils. Toxicity testing should be required to be performed on species present in the areas where the dispersant may be applied. De-listing of dispersants from the EPA’s approved list should be a formal process requiring a written explanation from the manufacturer of the reason for the de-listing. Manufacturers should be responsible for the consequences of product use as long as the product is listed by the EPA and as long as the product is available for use (unless the product is formally recalled). Grounds for product de-listing should include improper product use during spill response.

                The EPA should not authorize dispersant use in public multiple use areas where the chemicals can potentially threaten subsistence users and others not involved in the cleanup: at a minimum, dispersants and other chemical products with high-test industrial solvents should be permanently BANNED in nearshore areas and on beaches. In offshore situations, where dispersant use may lessen the risk of oil stranding on beaches, dispersant use could still be considered––but only with full knowledge of human risks, proven protection for workers in realistic situations, and independently-verified toxicity and effectiveness tests. When dispersants are used, human health effects should be monitored by non-industry funded researchers over the long-term––and results made public on a regular basis––to build our knowledge base. Funds could be appropriated from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for this purpose, because the studies would benefit the public interest.

                Industries that routinely handle materials that are governed by hazardous waste cleanup laws, such as crude oil, should be required to stockpile respirators, replacement filter cartridges for the respirators, goggles, gloves, and other protective clothing in strategically located warehouses in amounts necessary to respond to catastrophic spills.

Industry should be required to demonstrate effectiveness of stockpiled products––including dispersants––every three to five years; product that no longer meets the EPA or OSHA effectiveness tests should be discarded and replaced.

Recommendation #3: Old laws should be revised based on new science.

                Crude oil should be reclassified as a hazardous substance under all pertinent federal laws and regulations. Long-term ecosystem-based approaches should be mandated for baseline (pre-spill) monitoring and to assess damage and recovery from oil (or other hazardous waste) spills. The federal government should conduct or contract the baseline monitoring studies with reimbursements from permitees as a tax-deductible cost of doing business. This way the cost of the baseline monitoring studies is shared among all the consumers of oil, while the cost of any ­post-spill studies are borne by the spiller.

                Water quality standards should be revised to reflect the new science. The lowest levels at which a biological effect is observed––1 part per billion PAHs––is beyond the ability of even the best wastewater technology in the United States to remove from highway runoff or industry effluent prior to discharge. Meeting this standard would require essentially zero discharge of PAHs. This creates an almost unimaginable situation in which we seem to lack the proper tools to adequately protect our nation’s waters––and ultimately, life. Fundamental change is required to reduce chronic oil pollution and fundamental change starts with education.

Recommendation #4: The 1991 civil settlement in  the  Exxon Valdez  case  should  be  re-opened  and the entire $100 million available for un-anticipated  long-term harm should be claimed for educational purposes.

                The 1991 civil settlement provides a key tool to initiate a fundamental overhaul of our national laws regulating oil use: a re-opener clause based on unanticipated long-term harm to wildlife from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The federal government should petition to reopen the settlement to secure funds to develop educational programs for K–12, and other educational material for the public at large, on the persistent harmful effects of oil to wildlife and people.

Recommendation #5:  We  need  to  take  the politics (corporations) out of  science in order for science  to best serve society.

                Scientific controversies stall important environmental policy changes and guarantee continued environmental degradation to support short-sighted economic interests. Until science deals with its Achilles’ heel of advocacy science, it cannot meet society’s needs to protect life, and we will continue to pollute our soil, air, water, ourselves, and other life on this planet. To better communicate research findings to the public, the National Academy of Sciences should issue guidelines for public education as a mandatory component of publicly-funded research. The National Academy of Sciences should designate a special group just to referee, for society’s sake, environmental controversies that have global implications such as global warming, the ozone hole, and the Exxon Valdez spill effects (persistent oil effects). Scientists need to become accountable to the public. Since the voluntary system of peer review doesn’t work, the National Science Foundation should adopt stringent standards of misconduct for private research, similar to those existing for public research. The Freedom of Information Act no longer protects the public interest; it is being abused by corporations to obtain information from government researchers to discredit the work that is potentially damaging to industry before the original work is even published. The Freedom of Information Act needs to become a two-way street, where corporations that demand studies from government are subject to public demands to produce their own science. At a minimum, the requirement for public researchers to produce studies before they have been published should be revoked.

Recommendation #6: The legal/medical system designed to protect worker and public health needs to shift from a risk assessment approach to prevention and a precautionary approach.   It also needs to be over-hauled to recognize and address chemical-induced illnesses.

                We need a better system to protect public health from low-level chemical exposures. The basic tests, models, and formulas that form the foundation of risk assessment are outdated and fatally flawed, incapable of predicting “safe” levels of exposure of any single chemical in the chemical blizzard of our environment. We need to determine the most common chemicals in the “normal population” and in the environment and we should test exposures of new chemicals against this mix of common chemicals already in our bodies and environment rather than in a vacuum. Tests should accurately predict effects of chronic low-level exposure, not just acute exposure. Chemicals should not be allowed on the market until proven safe for non-target species including humans by the agencies responsible for protecting public and environmental health.

                Similarly for workers, risk assessment needs to be revamped so OSHA can establish realistic personal exposure limits (PELs) for compounds of concern––not surrogates!––based on multiple simultaneous chemical exposures and more subtle measures of harm such as endocrine disruption or immune function suppression. OSHA should require that PELs are adjusted to fit the actual hours worked, especially during disaster response, and OSHA should require health monitoring on the job and for the long-term if workers are exposed to hazardous materials.

                Federal oversight of hazardous waste cleanups should be mandated. The exemption for recording “colds and flu” as work-related illness should not apply during hazardous waste cleanups. Long-term monitoring should be required until we better understand chronic effects of acute exposures. The spiller should not be the primary responsible party for worker health and safety. The government-contracted party in charge of the worker safety program should be required to provide a copy of all exposure assessment data and medical records to OSHA and the spiller. OSHA should establish a central repository for holding records from hazardous waste cleanups. The records should be available to public researchers who wish to track the course of exposures and illnesses over time. This way, we might actually learn something from these toxic releases.

                To facilitate better understanding of chemical illnesses, workers’ claims from hazardous waste cleanups should be coded as hazardous waste cleanup claims and processed separately from other claims. Only personnel with training in environmental medicine or occupational medicine should diagnose and code these claims. The coding system should be expanded to include the symptoms of chemical injuries. All workers’ claims and records from hazardous waste cleanups should be sent to OSHA’s central repository, recommended above, for use by public health agencies and researchers.

                Congress should hold an oversight hearing to evaluate OSHA’s handling of the EVOS cleanup and other mass disasters, such as the 9/11 clean-up, to determine how to improve agency oversight and worker protection. As part of its investigation, Congress should subpoena the payroll records of Exxon and its primary contractors, all the clinical and medical records, and Exxon’s air quality monitoring data. Congress should lift the confidentiality order in the personal injury lawsuit Stubblefield v. Exxon (1994), filed in Superior Court, Third Judicial District, State of Alaska as a matter of urgent public interest. If the investigation finds that a long-term health-monitoring program of EVOS cleanup workers is warranted, Congress should require Exxon to fund such a study (as the company would have been required to do in 1989).  However, Congress should request OSHA to contract a team of independent epidemiologists to conduct the program and Exxon should not be allowed to participate in any phase of the study.