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In a wider perspective, the disaster points up the unresolved conflict between American desires for an unspoiled environment and demands for more energy that has long bedeviled national policy. Immediately the crack-up of the Exxon Valdez gives powerful new ammunition to environmentalists fighting against a proposal to allow oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last large tracts of U.S. wilderness virtually untouched by man. The proposal, which has the support of President Bush, has passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but it may be delayed by the Prince William Sound disaster. Says Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat: "The Exxon Valdez spill illustrates in a devastating way how delicate the environment of Alaska can be and how impotent we are to protect it from our own mistakes." Ironically, America's worst oil spill occurred just four days before the tenth anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident that choked off the development of nuclear-power plants and led to growing reliance on coal and oil. The bill for that decision is beginning to come due. The question that will increasingly haunt energy-policy debate is this: What degree of environmental risk should be accepted for the sake of adding domestic fuel supplies to a nation that has never been able or willing to practice sufficient conservation and yet rightly views dependence on foreign-oil imports as a threat to economic and military security?
In a sense, the Valdez tragedy begins not in Alaska but on Long Island, N.Y. There, in 1985, Captain Joseph Hazelwood was convicted of drunken driving. Last September in New Hampshire, he was again found guilty of driving while intoxicated. In a five-year span, his automobile driver's license was revoked three times. Hazelwood is still not permitted to steer a car, but he retained his license to command a ship -- why, no one can satisfactorily explain. In 1985, after Hazelwood informed the company about his drinking problem, Exxon sent him to an alcohol rehabilitation program. The company says it was not aware that the problem persisted after his treatment.
Hazelwood appeared to be in control of himself when he boarded the Exxon Valdez Thursday night, March 23. But when his blood was tested fully nine hours after the ship ran aground, he had a blood-alcohol level of .06, higher than the .04 the Coast Guard considers acceptable for ship captains. Assuming he drank nothing after the accident and his body metabolized at the normal rate, Hazelwood's level at the time of the accident was about .19, almost double the amount that causes a motorist to be judged drunk in many states. Exxon fired Hazelwood after it got the test results, a prime case of reacting long after the damage has been done. On Friday the state filed criminal charges against Hazelwood for operating a ship under the influence of alcohol and issued a warrant for his arrest.