Correction 4-20-08: Mr. Hazelwood has contacted me personally to point out the fact that he was not convicted of being intoxicated during this tragedy nor has he been diagnosed an alcoholic.
From Wikipedia:
During Hazelwood’s trial following the accident, Alaska state prosecutors failed to convince the jury that Hazelwood was intoxicated at the time of the grounding. By his own admission, Hazelwood drank “two or three vodkas” between 4:30 and 6:30 that same night, his blood alcohol content was found to be .061. However, the defense argued that the blood samples were taken nearly ten hours after the incident and were mishandled. Most states, including Alaska, do not allow samples after three hours and a preservative required to halt fermentation was not added to the sample. Fermentation could have added to the amount of alcohol in the sample making the result invalid. As a result of the accident, in 1991 the United States Coast Guard suspended his masters’ license for a period of nine months. Hazelwood was acquitted on all felony charges, but was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service.
Most alcoholics fear losing their license and serving a stint in the county jail as a repercussion of being charged with a DUI, maybe worst case scenario is vehicular homicide… or is it? Not if you consider the case of Joseph Hazelwood who has been fined $2.5 billion for destroying one of the world’s most pristine environments while driving intoxicated.
Yes, I am talking about Captain Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez and it is actually his company that is being fined for the event, the worst oil spill in US history that occurred when the oil tanker was holed by a reef in near Alaska’s Prince William Sound almost twenty years ago. In an extreme example of how slow the wheels of justice can turn, the company is still in the process of pleading with the US Supreme Court to reduce or do away with the punishment.
While I do think Exxon should be held responsible for the clean up and hit with punitive fines, they are often vilified when the real culprit was a captain more interested in drinking than piloting his ship. Yes they hired him and knew of his problem, but the fact remains that this boils down to basically an enormous DUI.
While I often speak of the collateral damage caused by substance abuse and alcoholism, this one takes the cake:
But according a University of Alaska study, only a quarter of the marine life survived the spill. The also mishap ruined the livelihoods of some 34,000 fishermen, cannery workers, Alaska Natives, who were among the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed in 1994 against the oil giant. ~ smh.com.au
