The incident which i am reffering to is the The Exxon Valdez oil spill, the oill spill which has been considered as the worst in history in terms of the amount of crude oil released into the ocean.
On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez, en route from Valdez, Alaska to Los Angeles, California, ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The vessel was traveling outside normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. Within six hours of the grounding, the Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10.9 million gallons of its 53 million gallon cargo of Prudhoe Bay Crude. Eight of the eleven tanks on board were damaged. The oil would eventually impact over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline in Alaska, making the Exxon Valdez the largest oil spill to date.
The bulk of the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez was released within 6 hours of the ship's grounding. The general trend of the oil was south and west from the point of origin. For the first few days after the spill, most of the oil was in a large concentrated patch near Bligh Island. On March 26, a storm, which generated winds of over 70 mph in Prince William Sound, weathered much of the oil, changing it into mousse and tarballs, and distributed it over a large area. By March 30, the oil extended 90 miles from the spill site. Ultimately, oil would extend more than 500 miles from Bligh reef, oiling shorelines in Prince William Sound, the Kenai peninsula, the Alaskan peninsula and Kodiak island. Oil impacts in the Prince William Sound region were the most severe.
The worlds worst oil accident was followed up by rescue and remediations programs which lasted till 1992-94. This matter was taken to the court by the active environmentalist and the fishermen of that area.
A federal jury in Alaska awarded $5 billion in punitive damages in 1994. A federal judge later reduced the punitive damages to $4.5 billion, and the appeals court further cut it to $2.5 billion
Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. company by market capitalization, then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing it already had paid more than $3.5 billion for the spill. The court on Wednesday threw out the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages By a 5-3 vote, the high court ruled that the punitive damages award should be slashed -- limited by the circumstances of the case to an amount equal to the total relevant compensatory damages of $507.5 million. This has came as a big relief to the company.
In the current situation the general US public believes that the company is making windfall profits on the surging price of crude oil i.e the reputation of the company is not good , now if we combine the current ruling which has bailed the company out of punitive compensation then the overall reputation of the company in the minds of the coustomer doesnt seem good. Will this have effect , yes definately, today the customers are becoming more conscious of their environment. If they together decide to buycott a company they can, therefore EXXON today seriously needs to indulge in some P.R activities pertaining to environment, it's not like that the company is not committed for the environmental cause but the company needs to be more vociferous in the current situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment