Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound [Hardcover]

John Keeble (Author), Natalie Fobes (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1999

Ten years later, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound remains the largest tanker spill in the history of North America, and in its devastating effects upon wildlife and habitat, arguably the most damaging tanker spill in the history of the world. First released in 1991, John Keeble's account, Out of the Channel, combined on-the-scene witnessing of the oil spill's lethal results with analysis of its ramifications upon ecology, community, economy, law, the nature of public information, and upon the American mythos. The aftermath of the oil spill, and no less transforming, the spill of Exxon's money and power, reached into every sector of Alaskan life as well as into the conscience of the people of the lower forty-eight states. The event is now seen as one of a handful of signal ecological disasters of the twentieth century.

The new "Tenth Anniversary' edition of Out of the Channel adds to its evocative, original text a new and full assessment of the permutations and twists of big money, big litigation, and "petroleum speak" from the vantage point of several years' remove, as well as an account of the 1991, $1 billion civil settlement between Exxon, the U.S. Justice Department, and the State of Alaska-the largest such environmental settlement ever. In this now definitive book on the oil spill, all the primary concerns of the first edition are updated with new material, including the cause of the ship's grounding on Bligh Reef, the fate of Captain Joseph Hazelwood, the long lasting effects of the spill, the projected death toll among animals, the little-known 1993 fisherman's tanker blockade, late-developing evidence about the true quantity of oil spilled, the benefits and abuses of professional science, as well as the heartening results of citizen pressure to improve oil shipping procedures in Prince William Sound and to protect fragile habitat.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On April 8, 1989, two weeks after the oil tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, Keeble arrived there on assignment for the Village Voice . He remained through September, visiting affected areas and talking to hundreds of scientists, fishermen and other natives, and public and corporate officials. Examining the oil industry, Keeble ( Yellowfish ) points out the blurred line between economic power and regulatory authority, and notes that there was no provision for high-speed decision-making for this crisis and very litle reliance on local expertise. He charges that Exxon, "the Hudson Bay Fur Trading Co. of contemporary Alaska," repeatedly exaggerated both the likelihood and facts of oil dispersal; that the upper echelons of the National Park Service tried to minimize the severity of the threat and deliberately stalled action. More than one and a half times as much refined fuel (gasoline, diesel) was used to operate machinery to clean up the effects of the disaster than was originally spilled. A hard-hitting, gripping account.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this portrait of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Keeble does not condemn, lament, or excuse the event. Unlike Art Davidson's In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez ( LJ 5/1/90) and Page Spenser's White Silk and Black Tar ( LJ 6/15/90), which appeared sooner after the event and which featured guilt versus innocence and the environmental horror as prevailing themes, Keeble offers a more rational, less emotional view of the disaster. He writes: "Outrage animated the oil and transformed it into a myth . . . . Sentiment universally expressed by those close to the oil spill . . . was 'We brought it on ourselves." ' Especially excellent is Keeble's unique discussion on the "Truth About Oil" in Chapter 14. Recommended for general audiences.
-Mary J. Nickum, Fish and Wildlife Reference Svc., Bethesda, Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Eastern Washington Univ Pr; 10 Anl Sub edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910055548
• ISBN-13: 978-0910055543
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,449,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Universal guilt, March 24, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound (Paperback)

Newspaper stories about the oil spill created the impression that the cause of the accident was simply that the captain was drunk. This book shows that the real situation was far more complex. The captain was definitely not drunk. He did have a few drinks, which is against regulations. Even after all the analysis it is not clear what exactly went wrong. The fact that the captain had a few drinks was not the only breach of regulations. None of the officers had a six-hour off duty time in the twelve-hour period before departure. The ship was single hulled instead of double hulled as was foreseen when the oil terminal was built. When Congress granted permission to build the pipeline and the terminal one of the conditions was that there would be a state-of-the-art contingency plan for oil spills. There was nothing of the sort. A Vessel Traffic Services station was supposed to monitor the movement of the ships through the strait. Due to cost cutting measures the station was unable to monitor the movement of the ship. A major cause of inefficiency in the clean up was the lack of clarity about who was in charge, the Coast Guard or Exxon. It is not just the captain that acted irresponsibly, so did all parties concerned. This is described in one part of the book. The second part of the book describes the impact of the oil spill and especially of the clean up on the communities affected. Each of the communities split in the middle. Half of the members took the position of trying to squeeze as much money out of Exxon as possible whilst the other half did not want to have anything to do with Exxon. Exxon did not succeed in engaging the communities in a positive way. The third part describes the nature in Alaska. These descriptions are wonderful and make you want to go there. These three parts are interwoven. The advantage is that the reader gets a three dimensional understanding of what happened: the responsibility for the disaster and the clean up, the impact on different members of the community and the impact on nature. The author places the ultimate responsibility on the consumer. He writes, " the American population prefers to live in a fog and is willing to accept almost anything in return for the opportunity to keep its gas tanks topped up" (with cheap gas). The combination of corporations maximising short-term profits and consumers closing their eyes to the consequences of their behaviour makes one worried. There must be a better way.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A humane account of a whitewashed catastrophe, October 29, 1999

By 

Chris Mohney - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound (Paperback)

Out of the Channel should be required reading for anyone who thinks environmentally ... not just environmentalists, but students, political and economic theorists, and most of all, writers. I had the good fortune to learn a great deal about writing from John Keeble, and reading his book is an education all by itself. As a rigorous study of the physical and human impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Out of the Channel is a comprehensive anatomy, a text that does not shirk any of the heavy load its vast subject demands. Without taking the easy route of righteous anger, Keeble explores every nuance of the oil spill, and he follows that tenacious blot of Prudhoe Bay crude as it seeps out of the tangible world and into the minds and spirits of the permanent and temporary inhabitants of Prince William Sound. This tenth anniversary edition, with the expanded coverage allowed by the perspective of time, is a gift that should not be overlooked.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant account of the Valdez oilspill and its aftermath, December 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound (Hardcover)

John Keeble, whose writing focuses on the issues facing the American Northwest, paints a memorable picture of the Exxon Valdez oilspill and its aftermath. Asked by the Greenwich Village Voice to write an article on the spill, he travels to Alaska and observes first-hand the efforts made to restore the land and the wildlife. However, the more he observes the more he is haunted by two observations: 1) that the size of the oil companies, and the entangled relationship between the companies and the government, is enormously greater than we have suspected, and 2) that the vast amounts of money poured into the clean-up effort causes many to view that money as their goal. His investigations into the clean-up follow a theme he develops in his other works: that the intrusion of a company or government upon the land inevitably causes exploitation; and those who live in that land must invariably suffer the consequences. Torn between the desires to make money, to clear the oil, and to downplay the scope of the incident, the people involved with clean-up waste a good deal of their effort. The more damage Keeble assesses, the more in tune he becomes with the suffering of the people and animals truly hurt, and ultimately, the reader, too, feels the chill that shakes the author at each new discovery.