Presidential Plenary Session: The 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

Abstract

Presidential Plenary Session: The 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill R o g e r W. P e a r s o n Institute of the North T h e b e s t k n o w n and most traumatic oil spills of the Pacific Coast Geographers region are the 1969 Santa Barbara spill and, 20 years later, the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound. By world standards, these are not large oil spills. The Exxon Valdez spill cur­ rently ranks 53d in the world; the Santa Barbara spill is not even listed (Cutter Information Corporation 2000). Nevertheless, both spills are important symbols of the environmental hazards of oil development and transport. Both occurred in beautiful and ecologi­ cally diverse areas. Both events and regions today are foci for significant ecological research. The 1989 APCG meetings in Fairbanks, Alaska, held within 6 months of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez tanker, paid special attention to the Prince William Sound spill, the cleanup, and the overall impact on Alaska. The 2001 meetings in Santa Barbara pro­ vided an excellent opportunity to revisit the 1969 spill. Our special guest and Plenary Session speaker, the Hon. Walter J. Hickel, has intimate knowledge of both spills. In 1969, Mr. Hickel was the gov­ ernor of Alaska until President Richard Nixon selected him to be Secretary of Interior. The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred within days of Hickel taking office (Hickel 1971). In 1990, a year after the Prince William Sound oil spill incident, Governor Hickel was once again elected to Alaska's highest office. This time, he was responsible for negotiating the resolution of state claims against the Exxon Corpo­ ration for the spill (Hickel 2002). The final settlement between the State of Alaska, the U.S. Government, and Exxon, as approved by the U.S. District Court in 1991, resulted in a $1.1 billion payment by Exxon (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council 2001). Also during his second term, in 1994, Governor Hickel was invited to help evalu­ ate the impacts and restoration plans for the Kharyaga-Usinsk Pipeline in northern Russia, where at least 30 million gallons of crude 146 President's Plenary Session: The 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill 147 petroleum spilled on the landscape. He has experience with more than his fair share of oil spill incidents. Governor Hickel's presentation gives us important insights into decision-making during a major environmental crisis. He did not have time to undertake a detailed analysis of the problems and al­ ternative solutions. Decisions had to be made "right now." Governor Hickel also considers the Santa Barbara incident in the much broader context of the "commons." Robert Sollen offers an evaluation of Governor Hickel's deci­ sion-making at the time of the incident and, perhaps equally important, an evaluation of the process then-Secretary of Interior Hickel used to make his decisions. Sollen also gives us a sense of the community's reaction to the spill. As the environmental reporter for the Santa Barbara Free Press at the time of the 1969 incident, Mr. Sollen is eminently qualified to undertake this task. His reporting included an exclusive interview with Governor Hickel. Mr. Sollen has writ­ ten extensively on politics and natural-resource issues in numerous national publications. He is the author of An Ocean of Oil, a study of California's offshore oil development. Incidentally, his book was published in Juneau, Alaska, thus further linking California and Alaska in this Plenary Session. Professor Keith Clarke, Chair of the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara Geography Department, provides us with a valuable overview of the oil spill—the context of the times, the geographic and geologic setting, and the immediate and long-term impacts. The combination of maps and imagery on Jeffrey Hemphill's Web site gives us a sense of the dramatic, immediate impacts of the spill as well as the changes that have occurred since that time. As I drove to the Kenai airport to start my journey to the APCG meeting, I passed by the local refineries, viewed the volcanic peaks of Mt. Spurr, Mt. Redoubt, and Mt. Illiamna, and glanced at the oil platforms in Cook Inlet...