Frontline: Anatomy Of An Oil Spill

"This is far more than the story of one allegedly drunk captain steering his tanker onto a reef," says Frontline correspondent Jon Tuttle, in reference to the disastrous oil spill that occurred when the Exxon supertanker Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, releasing some 11 million gallons of crude oil. This probing documentary shifts the focus from the present to the past, and examines the safeguards, or rather lack of safeguards, that characterized the Alaska pipeline system since its opening in 1977. Much of the testimony comes from former official Dan Lawn, who was constantly at the forefront of criticisms regarding the safety features of the system, and ended up losing his job because of his--as it turned out--quite justified outrage. After initially setting up a sophisticated array of checks and balances, monitored by the Coast Guard, the oil companies relaxed their policies following the oil price drops in '84 and '85 to the point where new navigation systems were dropped, "double bottom hull" legislation vetoed, and Coast Guard supervision of oil tankers severely reduced--creating a situation ripe for disaster. The contrast between the illusion of security and the reality of the Exxon is perhaps best expressed by the state's cleanup program--based on a projected spill of 1-2,000 barrels--a program woefully inadequate to cope with the 1989 spill. A good complementary program to America's Biggest Oil Spill (dist. by Aylmer Press; reviewed in our June, 1990 issue), this is highly recommended for libraries with larger environmental collections. (See DISCOVERING HAMLET for availability.)