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

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A grave and intelligent account of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. John Keeble's astute observation, not just of the scene, but of its historical and moral surround, is far more than reportage. His rendering of an occurrence that was covered sensationally and incoherently by mass media is a great service; his decent, careful treatment of Captain Hazelwood's role in the spill is alone worth the book."

"(Keeble) is surely right. . . . in lamenting the public's failure to heed the spill as a call to re-examine our national oil addiction. The gulf war has offered us a harrowing second chance, and Out of the Channel stands as a powerful exhortation against missing it."

"Mr. Keeble's ability to find ironies in catastrophe may be his greatest contribution to the tanker of words spilled over the Exxon Valdez."

" . . . Caught in a net of glossy lies and suppressed information (kept secret by Exxon for use in upcoming, private lawsuits), the residents respond to the spill with tears and nausea. His [Keeble's] novelist's eye searches steadily for small bright spots of courage and determination to counterbalance the evasion and environmental devastation . . . Because Keeble confronts Exxon's deceptions with childlike wonder rather than hardened rancor, we leave this book with the hopeful feeling that a new start might still be possible."

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.

John Keeble, novelist and non-fiction writer, is also the author of Crab Canon, Mine (with Ransom Jeffrey), Yellowfish, and Broken Ground. He is a professor of Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.

". . . the village health aide, had said, 'Veco came in one day and literally took over the country. . . . Our people are very excited about going to work, but there also was a lot of fear about losing our subsistence. And we have. We haven't been able to collect our clams, seaweed, herring roe, halibut. . . . . This is something that has affected us emotionally, and I expect it will affect us physically. It has affected us spiritually. Our spiritual leaders have gone off to work on the spill, making $16.69 an hour. . . . I don't know if Port Graham will ever be the same. People don't have time to visit. They don't have time for tea. They're too busy. Even the children look lost.'"