American Scandal - Exxon Valdez: Oil Meets Water | 1

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

A supertanker carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil runs aground in Prince William Sound sparking the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in the country’s history at the time. As Exxon struggles to get the cleanup underway, fishermen worry that this is the end of life as they know itLinks to recommended reading:Not One Drop by Riki OttOut of the Channel by John KeebleThe Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez DisasterNeed more American Scandal? With Wondery+, enjoy exclusive seasons, binge new seasons first, and listen completely ad-free. Start your free trial in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or visit https://wondery.app.link/rUic7i1hMNb now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to the first episode of this American Scandal season. With Wondery+, you can binge the remaining episodes, listen to new episodes early, and explore more exclusive seasons completely ad-free. Start your free trial of Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today. It's March 23rd, 1989. Just past nightfall, and Frederica Ricky Ott is barreling down a mountain through the dark in a toboggan. Ricky lives alone on a mountain three miles outside the tiny fishing village of Cordova, Alaska. She's miles from the nearest plowed road, so getting anywhere means hopping on that old sled and letting it rip. The sled sends a shudder through her body as it skids over the hard-packed

snow dodging towards spruces and boulders. She smells the sap of the trees as she flies past. The cold air stings her face. God, she loves this place. The lights of Cordova come into view in the distance, and Ricky's heart swells with excitement. It's not just the thrill of the ride, it's where she's headed and what she's about to do. Ricky's addressing a government committee about her favorite subject, oil safety. Specifically, how to protect her beloved Alaska

from the billions of gallons of oil being piped through its forests and shipped across its waters. Ricky parks her sled at the bottom of the mountain. Then she hops on a bike and rides through town, making her way to a cramped conference room above the local Fisherman's Union Hall. Not a typical venue for a major speech. Ricky's audience is actually 70 miles away in Valdez, and Ricky's here in Cordova. There are no roads out of Cordova. Getting to Valdez, or just about anywhere, means hours on a boat over seven-foot winter swells or in a bush plane over the mountains. Skype and video conferencing are still a decade away, so Ricky's going to be addressing a speakerphone tonight in an empty room.

Hello? You there, Ricky? Hello? Ricky Ott here, Mayor. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. The miracle of modern technology, right? Actually, technology is what Ricky is here to talk about. Specifically, the technology that allowed men to find oil buried deep beneath the frozen tundra of Alaskan's North Slope 30 years ago. Technology that allowed them to pump it through an 800-mile-long pipeline to the port of Valdez, a stone's throw from where her audience is sitting right now on the other end of the line. The committee listens as she shares her concerns about the supertankers that oil gets loaded onto,

supertankers that carry it right over her fishing grounds, the waters she and thousands of other fishermen rely on for their livelihoods. One major accident, and those waters could be spoiled for years. Oil and water don't mix. She closes her eyes a bit as she speaks, trying to imagine the people listening on the other end, trying to forget the tiny room she's in. She doesn't need to see her notes.

It's a speech she's given many times before. And it's about the life she lives every day. Given the number of tankers in and out of Port Valdez, we fishermen feel that we're playing a game of Russian roulette. Man's voice breaks in. Hi, Ricky. Do you really feel it's possible for one of these tankers to run aground here? Absolutely, Ricky says.

The big one is coming. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. That very same evening, a 1,000-foot-long supertanker called the Exxon Valdez eases from its slip at the Alaska Pipeline Terminal, less than two miles from Ricky's audience. The Valdez is the newest, most sophisticated ship in Exxon's fleet. Its captain is an expert, with over 100 Alaskan runs under his belt. And the cargo, 53 million gallons of Alaskan crude, is secure. The weather is clear, calm seas, good visibility.

A perfect start for a five-day trip to Long Beach, California. But the ship will never make it there. For all the money, time, and expertise put into a feat of engineering like the Exxon Valdez, no one ever accounted for a lone underwater spire of rock jutting up just below the surface 25 miles ahead, thousands of years old, waiting, invisible in the dark Alaskan night. Tomorrow, America will wake up to the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in the country's history. And Ricky Ott's fishing village, Cordova, Alaska, will soon become the epicenter of a decades-long fight for survival, hitting local fishermen against one of the largest companies in the world.

This is the story of the Exxon Valdez. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal. What is the price of a gallon of gas? You fill up your car, hop on an airplane, catch the bus to work. To do just about anything these days, you need oil. It takes about 850 million gallons a day to keep America running. Yet few realize that a quarter of that oil comes from the trans-Alaskan oil pipeline. Every day, millions of gallons of thick, black, Alaskan crude cross Prince William Sound,

one of the richest, most pristine ecosystems left on Earth, where Native communities have lived for thousands of years, and thousands of fishermen make their living now, before the oil makes its way to the cars and trucks and homes of the lower 48. Over the next four episodes, we're going to explore the true price of a gallon of gas when something goes wrong. The hidden cost. The human cost. That gallon of gas, it turns out, can cost a lot more than you think. This is Episode 1, Oil Meets Water. Among the grizzled captains and old-timers who navigate the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound, there are two pieces of well-worn knowledge that have been passed down for generations. The most dangerous sea is a calm sea, and the most dangerous wind is no wind at all.

You're out there, all alone. With no weather, no obstacles, boredom sets in. Complacency, laziness. The mind wanders and loses focus. Captain Joseph Hazelwood knows this better than anyone. Hazelwood's a real salty dog, broad-shouldered, imposing, his round face covered with a rough gray stubble. He was the youngest man ever to make captain in the Exxon fleet at age 32. He's 42 now, and in that decade at the helm, he's developed a reputation as an

exceptional skipper, adept at navigating his ships through dangerous situations. On March 23rd, 1989, conditions are ideal on Prince William Sound. Wind is low and visibility is good. Captain Hazelwood stands in the wheelhouse of the Exxon Valdez, looking out over his ship. The worst of the journey is already behind him. They've made it through the Valdez Arm, the narrow channel that connects the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Terminal to Prince William Sound. Now they're in the heart of the Sound, a vast expanse of water bound in by hundreds of craggy islands, stretching like the scarred fingers of a fisherman's hand towards the Gulf of Alaska.

Past those islands, open sea, smooth sailing. Hazelwood stubs out his Marlboro and lights another. Healthy living is in his strong suit. Next to him stands third mate Gregory Cousins. Cousins is always a little uncomfortable standing this close to the captain. Hazelwood's mere presence intimidates. He has a withering gaze and a cutting wit. Hazelwood's the kind of man who makes you want him to like you, and Cousins really wants to be liked. He's not supposed to be on the bridge right now.

This isn't even his shift. He's staying on so another mate can catch up on sleep. The process of loading the ship and getting out to port is a grueling 24-hour sprint. The Baudis has only 19 crew members, all of them going flat out to load 53 million gallons of oil into seven-story high tanks. 19 crew members to man a vessel three football fields long, so all hands on deck, as they say. Now, close to midnight, Cousins is running on fumes. By all accounts, Gregory Cousins is an exemplary third mate. He's climbing that ladder to captain. The only knock on his performance reviews is he's sometimes slow to report challenges and problems to his superiors. He's too eager to please.

At 11.54 p.m., Hazelwood turns to Cousins. When we pull even with Busby Island, I want a 10-degree turn to the right. I'm going to go down to my quarters and deal with some paperwork. You think you can handle the turn? Yes, sir. Hazelwood senses hesitation. Do you feel comfortable making that turn? Yes, Captain. No problem, Captain. Hazelwood disappears below deck, leaving Cousins alone on the bridge. The truth is Cousins has never piloted a ship in these waters before. He's not even licensed to navigate Prince William Sound, but it's just one 10-degree turn. The lookout

pokes her head into the wheelhouse. You've got a red on your right. Cousins has got Bly Reef on the wrong side of the ship. Should be on the left. Thank you. No problem. 10 degrees right. One zero right. Cousins breathes a sigh of relief. Done. That's it. Home free. He turns his back to the wheel and then calls down to the captain's stateroom. Captain, I have ordered the turn. Good, good. How's she looking? I think we're going to catch a bit of ice up ahead. Does it look to be a problem? No, no problem at all. Good work. I'll be up in a minute. Cousins hangs up the phone and turns back to the wheel. The reading should be at 10 degrees by now, but it hasn't changed. It's unclear why, but the ship is still chugging dead ahead towards the reef. The lookout bursts into the wheelhouse.

Red on your right. Cousins stays calm. The captain's stateroom is only paces away. One phone call and he'll be back on the bridge in 15 seconds. But Cousins doesn't need the captain. He's got this. He orders a harder turn. 20 degrees right.

2-0 right. But it's not going to be enough. The ship weighs a quarter of a million tons. It can take minutes to respond to the turning of the wheel. Cousins' cool veneer starts to crack. Hard right! Hard right! But the ship's heading still isn't changing. Frantically, Cousin double-checks his charts, then finally grabs the phone.

Captain, go ahead. Captain, I think we're in serious trouble. Fifteen minutes before the crash, Bruce Blanford is arriving for the graveyard shift at the Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service in Valdez. Blanford is a radar operator at the station that monitors tanker traffic through Prince William Sound. The building is practically empty. It's looking like another quiet night on the job. Only one ship out there tonight, the Exxon Valdez. out there tonight, the Exxon Valdez. Blanford checks into the radar room, a cramped space barely large enough to hold the jumble of maps and computer monitors

used to track ships and the sound. The operator currently on duty starts packing his things up. As he leaves, he tells Bruce that he's having a little trouble holding on to the Valdez's signal tonight. Blanford shrugs, business as usual, at least ever since the Coast Guard

downgraded to a cheaper radar system. They also got rid of half of the vessel tracking staff, so tonight it's just Bruce and the guys at the weather service down the hall. Blanford heads to the kitchen, grabs some coffee, and makes a sandwich. When he gets back, he checks the radar. And there's the Exxon Valdez, alone in the sound, her radar signal bright, strong, clear as day. Except, she isn't moving, and she's sitting right on top of Bly Reef.

The time is 12.26 a.m., and the Valdez has been aground for 20 minutes. Bruce's radio chirps to life. It's Captain Joseph Hazelwood. The captain hesitates, unsure of how to describe the situation. We, uh, should be on your radar there. We've fetched up, uh, hard ground north of Goose Island off Bly Reef and, uh, evidently, uh, we are leaking some oil. Leaking some oil isn't just the understatement of the year. It may well be the single greatest understatement in the history of maritime transport.

Bruce calls his supervisor, Coast Guard Commander Steve McCall, waking him from a dead sleep. Bruce cuts to the chase. The Valdez has run aground, sir. We've had the big one. By 12.35 a.m., 30 minutes after impact, 100,000 gallons of oil have poured into the clear blue water.

And in those 30 minutes, the Valdez has become the worst spill in Alaskan history. But it's about to get much, much worse. Back on the deck of the Valdez, floodlights are bursting to life one by one, their cool blue hue pushing back against the dark Alaska night. Captain Joseph Hazelwood looks down over his ship, the jewel of the Exxon fleet, his mouth agape, Marlboro dangling from his lips. Oil spews in geysers from ruptured tanks, standing seven stories high and roars to the surface around the disemboweled ship.

The air is already thick with blue vapor and eye-searing, nostril-singing fumes. With every minute, the tragedy gets worse, but there's nothing Hazelwood and his crew can do except watch and wait for help to arrive. At 3.01 a.m., almost three hours later, the first Coast Guard vessel approaches the Valdez. Standing at its prow is Chief Warrant Officer Mark Delosier. Delosier is a Coast Guard Marine investigator with a rough-hewn face and piercing eyes. As his ship nears the Exxon Valdez, he notices something strange. He no longer hears the sound of waves slapping against the side of his boat. The water has gone eerily silent

and in its place is the creepy, quiet slither of oil bubbling up all around him. By this point over four million gallons of oil have dumped into the pristine emerald water of the Sound. Delosier boards the Valdez and goes in search of Captain Hazelwood.

He finds him standing alone on the bridge, puffing on another Marlboro. Joseph Hazelwood is surrounded by millions of gallons of highly combustible oil, and he's smoking a cigarette. Delosier suggests the captain might want to put it out. Silently, Hazelwood obeys. It's strange. The captain is covering his mouth, like he's trying to hide something. Delosier looks him over and asks him what the problem is. Hazelwood meets Delosier's gaze. You're looking at it. Joseph Hazelwood is

being facetious. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. To him, the problem is obvious. The Valdez has run aground. But what Delosier hears Hazelwood say is, I, Captain Hazelwood,, the problem is obvious. The Valdez has run aground. But what Delosier hears Hazelwood say is, I, Captain Hazelwood, am the problem. Even through the searing fumes of the oil, Delosier smells booze on Hazelwood's breath. A lot of it. Back on deck, Delosier radios back to headquarters to get the state police out to the Valdez. He wants everyone on the ship tested for drugs and alcohol. This is serious trouble. Delosier looks out into the night, past the crew members scurrying in their survival gear under the floodlights, past the bubbling slick of oil that now stretches 300 yards past the ship. What he's looking at is nothing. It's a peaceful, quiet night on the Sound.

And that bothers Mark Delosier. It's been three hours now. Shouldn't more help be on the way? Spill response teams? Emergency containment equipment? He scans the horizon towards Valdez Arm, the narrow channel that leads back to Port Valdez and the oil pipeline terminal. And nothing is on the water.

No vessels en route. Just the emerald streaks of the northern lights in the sky and the Chugash Mountains rising black and silent from the waters of Prince William Sound. Then Delosier asks a question that will be repeated by fishermen, politicians, lawyers, and television viewers around the world in the weeks to come. Where is everybody? He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so.

Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to

the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers. This heart-stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant, Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 MAX, the latest season of business wars, explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust. The decisions, denials, and devastating consequences

bringing the Titan to its knees and what, if anything, can save the company's reputation. Now, follow Business Wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Business Wars, The Unraveling of Boeing, early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Back in the town of Valdez, Chuck O'Donnell is sound asleep when a phone call jars him awake. Chuck is the superintendent

of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, a consortium created by BP, Exxon, and several other big oil companies to maintain their pipeline in Alaska. Chuck's job is to oversee the response to all oil spills in Prince William Sound. That response is codified in excruciating detail in the state-approved 1977 contingency plan,

the CP, as most Alaskans call it. The CP runs almost 1,000 pages, offering a minute-by-minute, item-by-item plan to provide the world's most sophisticated, effective response to an oil spill in Alaskan waters. Step one is to notify the superintendent of Alyeska. Notify Chuck. But Chuck is exhausted.

He only got to sleep 15 minutes before he picked up the phone. He was out late last night at Alyeska's big oil safety banquet, a party to commemorate the one billionth barrel of oil to pass safely through the Transalaska pipeline. The banquet was held just across from the port where Captain Hazelwood was weighing anchor and sounding the ship's horn for departure, and a half mile from where Ricky Ott was predicting imminent disaster via speakerphone. But the Alyeska employees at the party weren't thinking about disaster. They were celebrating a job well done, dancing, drinking.

A bit too much, perhaps. Chuck passes word of a possible oil leak onto his deputy, Larry Shear. Then Chuck rolls over and goes back to sleep. And with that, the vaunted Alyeska contingency plan, the CP, is set in motion. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. The CP dictates that Alyeska call in its crack emergency cleanup crew, a team of eight highly trained oil spill experts on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, who are to be outfitted with perfectly maintained, state-of-the-art equipment. But Deputy Superintendent Larry Shear doesn't call that crew,

because that crew was let go during budget cutbacks seven years ago. Instead, Larry calls in the members of Alyeska's replacement crew. At a little after 4 a.m. on March 24th, the replacements show up at the gates of the Alyeska pipeline terminal, groggy and disheveled. They are guys who make their living loading and unloading oil tankers at the dock. They may not be highly trained, but they have received special training

for this type of scenario. Sort of. Every so often, they'd head out into Valdez Harbor in a special craft designed to skim oil off the surface of the water, called skimmer boats, where they would collect oranges bobbing in the water. It turns out an orange and a glob of oil have roughly the same buoyancy, but even corralling oranges in the water didn't always go so well. During one drill, the team managed to run a skimmer boat aground, with several of Alyeska's top executives on board as observers. But mostly, the cleanup crew would just sit around, eating the oranges. Now they are tasked with dealing with a real oil spill, and not just a tanker that sprung

a little leak. Almost six million gallons of oil are already in the water around Bly Reef. They receive the wake-up call three and a half hours after the crash. The CP calls for the team to be at the spill site within five hours, and it'll take at least two and a half hours for their emergency barge and all their equipment to reach the ship. If they're lucky, they'll arrive at the site only one hour late. But when they show up at the barge that will take them to the Valdez, it's empty. All of their equipment is missing. Their booms, floating fences that corral oil and prevent it from spreading, are gone. Their skimmers are gone too. After a quick search, they find it all buried under the seven feet of snow that has fallen since the equipment was

offloaded two months ago. The booms have holes that need to be patched. Anchors need to be attached to them so they'll work properly. And then everything needs to be loaded onto the barge. By 6 a.m., Alyeska has called in 50 extra employees to help dig out the equipment. But there's another problem. Only one of the 50 can operate a forklift to move the equipment. And it gets worse. That same man is the only person who can operate the crane that will take the equipment from the forklift and load it onto the barge.

50 emergency workers and the eight-man spill response team watch as that lone forklift operator slowly drives a load from the warehouse onto the dock, then climbs out of the forklift, climbs up into the crane, and loads it onto the boat. Then repeats, over and over and over again. It's like a comedic farce, but no one's laughing. While Alyeska struggles to get the emergency response team into the water, another three million gallons of Exxon's oil leak into Prince William Sound, 25 miles away. At 8 a.m. on Friday, March 24th, almost eight hours after the spill, Ricky Ott hurries along the docks of Cordova Harbor.

Outwardly, it appears to be a day like any other. The air is crisp and cold and the sky is clear. Otters play in the water. Gulls fight over scraps left over from yesterday's catch. But this morning, as she passes the same familiar sight she's seen every morning for years, Ricky knows none of this will ever be the same again. Ricky was startled awake less than an hour ago by someone pounding on the door of her cabin high above town. Fisherman Jack Lamb, out of breath from the three-mile climb, told her the news.

The big one has happened. Now she's struggling to keep up with Jack as he barrels across the docks towards the Cordova Fisherman's Union Hall. He doesn't speak. His face is twisted into a grimace. His fists are clenched tight. Ricky's never seen Jack like this before. A life of hard work and hard weather

has made Jack Lamb tough. He almost drowned as a boy, but became a fisherman anyway. As a teen, a shooting accident put a bullet in his right leg, and it took him 36 hours to get to the nearest hospital. By then, blood poisoning had already set in. He lost a leg from the knee down. Now he skippers his own 66-foot boat, the Poncho.

He's well-known in town for freaking out rookie captains by swinging his prosthetic leg over the side of the ship and using it as a fender as he pulls up to dock. There's not much that scares Jack Lamb, but today he's terrified. Jack is a leader here. He's the president of the Cordova Fishermen's Union, and he feels responsible for the people of this town

like they are his family. And if half of what he's hearing about this spill is true, their entire way of life is in grave danger. People are just waking up to the news that there's been a spill. They don't know how big or what happened, but they're scared and full of questions. Ricky wants to get them answers. At the union office, the phones are ringing off the hook. Jack swipes one off its cradle. Jack here. Bill. Bill, slow down. We don't know what happened. Not exactly. I'm here with Ricky now. We'll let everyone know what's going on as soon as we can, all right? Okay. Jack, I'm going to see if I can't get a bush pilot to take me up to look at the spill, all right? There's going on as soon as we can, all right? Okay. Jack, I'm gonna see if I can't get a bush pilot to take me up to look at the spill, all right? There's gonna be a lot of rumor, a lot

of speculation. We need to know what's actually happening. Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll track down Steiner. If anyone knows what's up, it's him. Ricky hurries to the door. I'll call in as soon as we land. The door slams behind her, but then it opens again. She pokes her head back in. Steiner's right outside. Rick Steiner, a fisherman, 6'4", ducks a bit as he comes in through the door of the union office. Anything new, Jack? I was just on my way to ask you the same thing. Steiner shakes his head.

I'm hearing there's nobody out there. Nobody cleaning it up. Jack leafs through the office copy of the Alyeska contingency plan. It says here that Alyeska can contain any spill within 50 miles in 12 hours. The Exxon Valdez is only half that far. I'm sure they're on it. They've got to be. Steiner sounds like a man trying to convince himself. If nobody cleans this up, man, we're done for. There are 10 million herring on their way into the Sound right now. They're going to be spawning, Sam. And the salmon are about to run, too.

There are 100 million salmon fry hatching, at least. And the birds migrating soon. Steiner says what they are both thinking. This is the absolute worst possible time of the year for a spill. When Rick Steiner looks out over the harbor that morning, he sees rows upon rows of fishing boats bobbing gently in the freezing water. A mortgage on each one. Expensive equipment, expensive permits. Every fisherman on the sound has to scrape and save just to put together enough for a down payment on what they have. And most will still owe the bank for decades. Just a couple of weeks ago, Rick himself took all the money he had

down to the last dime and pooled it with the savings of a group of fishermen to buy a new permit and a new boat. $300,000 total, most of it mortgaged. It seemed worth the investment. 1989 was supposed to be a record fishing season, the best ever. But a spill like this could wipe out the entire salmon harvest, not to mention the herring. No income, no money for food, nothing for the bank. Suddenly, the months ahead flash through Rick's mind,

yawning wide open and empty. He feels a sickening knot rise up in his chest. He keeps telling himself, they'll clean this up. There's still time. We're talking about Exxon here, Alyeska. These guys have all the money and equipment in the world. It'll all work out. and equipment in the world. It'll all work out. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life.

You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding,

and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. By 9 a.m., nine hours since the Exxon Valdez crashed into the reef, Rikki Ott has made it out to the spill site by air. She looks down at the tankers from a bush pilot's turboprop and gasps. It's worse than anyone could possibly imagine.

The ship sits in the icy water like a rust-red wound, bleeding black blood, a horrible blot of oil spreading out like a tentacled monster. The icebergs around it are stained black. Sea lions thrash inside the slick, trying to pull themselves up onto buoys to get out of the oil. A few lumps float on the smooth surface of the oil. Sea otters. Dead. The first group of many. And no signs of any cleanup activity in sight. Just the Valdez and the sick blackness spreading around it. The air above the tanker itself is blue with oil vapors, a cloud of carcinogens so thick that pain shoots up Ricky's spine into her head,

followed by an overwhelming wave of nausea. The plane engines begin to sputter in the dense fumes as the pilot banks hard to turn around in search of clean air. Tears stream down Ricky's face as she watches the impaled tanker shrink into the distance again. Where is everybody? Why isn't anyone down there? Where are the skimmers? Where are the booms?

Why isn't anyone helping? Ricky's plane lands to refuel at the Valdez airport, a single runway airstrip that rarely sees more than six or seven flights a day. Now it's buzzing with new arrivals. Ricky wonders, who are all these people? She makes her way through the crowd to the terminal's only bank of payphones and calls Jack Lamb back at the union office in Cordova. It's bad, Jack. It's real bad. There's no one out there. She says there's no one out there. What else do you see? Jack, once the wind gets that oil, it's going to be everywhere, everywhere. All over our fishing grounds.

Oh, God. And it's not just this season, Jack. It'll be for years, years, and years. What are we going to do? There's silence on the other line. There are no words for the bleak future that lies ahead. Jack, okay, we're fueling up to come back to Cordova. I'll be there in about half an hour, okay?

Well, Ricky, let's hold off on that for a sec. Exxon's having their first press conference later today in Valdez, five miles from where you are now. Maybe you could stay there, be our eyes and ears. We'll all be listening on the radio at the uni hall, but it would be great to have someone in the room. Ricky hesitates. I don't know, Jack. I mean, it's bad out there. I don't know what I can do. It's just going to get worse.

I feel like I need to come back and help somehow. Ricky, listen. We're fishermen, and that's it. But you, you're different. Nobody knows this stuff better than you do. We need you, Ricky. We need your help. Ricky hangs up the phone, dazed and unsure. Ricky is different from many of her fellow fishermen. She had a career before she came to Cordova, a career she could go back to.

She wanders back outside, takes a deep breath. She watches the planes landing, taking off, helicopters buzzing overhead. She could sell her permit. She could sell her boat. She could cut her losses right now, get on one of those planes, and go back to her old life in the lower 48, where she was known as Dr. Frederica Ott, PhD, scientist. But then she thinks about her life here in the wild,

the thrill of untangling thrashing silver salmon from a freezing cold net, the summer nights out on the sound, listening to the loons from the deck of her boat, the ambergris, and the camaraderie, the community of fishermen, the intense bond that forms between peers on treacherous waters, between people counting on you to come to their aid, to save their lives, and counting on them to save yours. Jack Lamb is right. She has the expertise to make a difference here.

Her PhD is in marine pollution. Her master's degree is in oil pollution. Every choice, every decision she's ever made has brought her to this moment, brought her thousands of miles from where she was born to Alaska, and just a few miles from the epicenter of one of the worst ecological disasters in U.S. history. So when a reporter approaches her on the tarmac, notebook in hand, asking if she can help him understand what's really going on out there, she doesn't hesitate. Yes, I'm Dr. Ott, she says, and I can help. At 6 p.m., Ricky sits in a drab ballroom at the Valdez Civic Center. Exxon's first post-bill press conference is about to begin.

Reporters are squished into rows of banquet chairs facing a folding table packed with microphones at the front of the room. Today is Good Friday, and organ music wafts in from the service taking place in the ballroom next door. Ricky surveys the crowd from her seat in the last row. Very few locals. She's frustrated. If they'd held this event in Cordova, the place would be packed with fishermen ready to give these oilmen what for.

Ricky watches as a parade of men in suits and starched shirts take their seats at the table. Men she's never seen before, except for one. Exxon's in-house scientist, Dr. Alan Mackey. He has thick, square-rimmed glasses and a perfectly trimmed beard on a pale, round face. His aw-shucks persona borders on sanctimonious, as if he were daring people not to trust him. Ricky Ott trusts him about as far as she can throw him. From his seat at the table, Dr. Mackey leans into his microphone. Dispersants. That's the answer. Dispersants are the table, Dr. Mackey leans into his microphone. Dispersants, that's the answer. Dispersants are the cure for what is happening on Prince William Sound.

You spray them onto the oil from planes flying low, and they literally make the oil disappear. Ricky's mouth drops open. Is he serious? She knows a lot about dispersants. Sure, they'll make the oil disappear on the surface. Dispersants cause the oil to break into tiny droplets and sink out of sight, where it will poison the marine life below. Dispersants are manufactured by the oil companies themselves, and Ricky is pretty sure that Exxon will want to use its own proprietary blend, Corexit, which is molecularly similar to kerosene. Exxon's solution to clean up the spill, to resurrect the sound, is to douse it with kerosene. But the assembled reporters are dutifully recording Mackie's every word,

like it's gospel, under the strains of organ music coming from next door. It reminds Ricky of the last scene of The Godfather, the one where everyone is killed. Ricky steals her nerves. It's time to stand up for her town, for the waters they all fish, and for their way of life. She shouts out from the back of the room, Dr. Mackey, my name is Ricky Ott. I have a master's and a doctorate in marine pollution. I am a fisherman from Cordova. Heads turn. Chairs creak as journalists crane their necks to see who is interrupting the press conference. Dr. Mackey, you and I were both at the International Oil Spill Conference in Texas last month, where the use of dispersants

was widely debated by experts. Dispersants are toxic to fish. Fishermen are concerned they'll harm the herring that are spawning in the water right now. Back in Cordova, a cheer erupts at the Union Hall, where a crowd has gathered to listen on a transistor radio. And when the press conference ends, a throng of reporters crowd around Ricky for interviews. The stories they file later that night will focus on the danger dispersants pose to Prince William Sound. They will quote Dr. Ott. Ricky has ambushed Exxon in front of the national press, but she knows this is only the beginning of the fight. Exxon is the largest energy company in America. They have tens of thousands of employees,

armies of lawyers, lobbyists, PR spin doctors, and billions of dollars to spend. Rickey knows they will bring all of those resources to bear on this tiny corner of Alaska to make sure that what happened last night doesn't affect the company's bottom line. And they won't let some small-town fisherman get in their way. The Battle of Alaska has begun. Next on American Scandal, Exxon scrambles to put an 11 million gallon genie back in the bottle. And Ricky Ott finds that the glare of the national media spotlight makes it hard to tell friend from foe. From Wondery, this is episode one of five of Exxon Valdez for American Scandal.

On the next episode, Exxon scrambles to put 11 million gallon genie back into the bottle, and Ricky Ott finds out that the glare of the American media spotlight makes it hard to tell friend from foe. To listen to the rest of this season of American Scandal, start your free trial of Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. With Wondery Plus, you can listen to other incredible history podcasts like American History Tellers, History Daily, Tides of History, and more. Download the Wondery app today. If you'd like to learn more about the Exxon Valdez, we recommend the book Not One Drop by Ricky Ott. This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details. And while in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research. Thank you. Our co-publishers are Stephanie Jens, Marshall Louis, and Hernan Lopez for Wondery.