Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker that ran aground more than three decades ago in Alaska, causing one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history, has died.
An Anchorage jury awarded nearly 33,000 plaintiffs affected by the Alaska spill $5 billion in punitive damages in 1994, but that amount was cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court cut the punitive damages to $507.5 million.
During his 1990 Anchorage trial, witnesses reported he drank vodka at a Valdez bar before the ship sailed, but how much he drank and at what hour were in dispute. No witnesses described Hazelwood as appearing drunk, staggering or slurring his words. Crew members called him cool, calm and in command before and after the grounding, according to Associated Press coverage of the trial.His blood-alcohol reading was .061, but he wasn’t tested until about 10½ hours after the tanker grounded.
During his sentencing, then-Superior Court Judge Karl Johnstone said he was disappointed Hazelwood had not publicly apologized for his role in the disaster.In June 1999, Hazelwood, of Huntington, New York, spoke to the New York Times as he prepared to leave for Anchorage to complete his community service.
He then noted that he was convicted of a low-level misdemeanor. “There’s no lower crime in the state of Alaska. The judge had to come up with a sentence. I can understand it. I don’t have to agree with it,” Hazelwood told the Times.Hazelwood took responsibility in the book, “The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster,” by Sharon Bushell and Stan Jones.
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