BP Botched Exxon Cleanup, Too

BP was partially in charge of mopping up that mess, too
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 25, 2010 12:10 PM CDT
BP Botched Exxon Cleanup, Too
The Exxon Baton Rouge, smaller ship on left, attempts to off load crude oil from the crashed Exxon Valdez in this March 26, 1989 file photo.   (AP Photo, File)

Commentators can't help but compare the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which leaked 11 million gallons of crude into the water, killed countless animals, and tarnished the owner of the damaged tanker, Exxon. Yet the leader of botched containment efforts in the critical hours after the tanker ran aground wasn't Exxon Mobil Corp. It was BP PLC, the same firm now fighting to plug the Gulf leak.

BP owned a controlling interest in the Alaska oil industry consortium responsible for cleaning up the spill. People who had a front-row seat to the Alaska spill tell the AP that BP's actions in the Gulf suggest it hasn't changed much at all. "It's the same cleanup techniques," said one lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and it's "no more likely to do any good than it did in 1989."
(More Exxon Valdez stories.)

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