The Dark Side of Alaska: Colin Stutz Reports From the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Before the spill, herring fishing was a $50 million industry in Cordova, making the town one of the most profitable seaports in America. "You can imagine that economy and that vibrancy in the community," says Lankard. "Every year when those herring would crank up, the whole place would come alive. But now those herring don't come back, and this place is quiet. We haven't fished herring in but three of the last seventeen years."

Proper compensation has been hard to come by for those whose livelihoods were devastated by the spill. In December, as part of a case that dated back to 1994, a federal court awarded $2.5 billion in punitive damages, with an additional $2 billion in accumulated interest. But ExxonMobil has successfully kept the case tied up in court for more than a decade and may still appeal the verdict. "Of the original 32,000 plaintiffs, over 3,000 have already died," says Lankard. "So ten percent of the original plaintiffs are dead without ever seeing compensation in their lifetime. How can Exxon just want to wait it out with hopes that half or all of us die before we see a settlement?"

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, ExxonMobil stands by its claim that Prince William Sound has fully recovered. "Residual oil remains," concedes company spokesman Mark Boudreaux. "But the issue is whether or not that oil is bio-available, and whether it is still creating any significant concerns with the environment. Our position is that if the oil were exposed and bio-available, it would have degraded over the past seventeen years."

But numerous studies suggest otherwise -- and those who monitor ExxonMobil say the company has a disturbing track record of denying its own role in polluting the environment. According to a study by Friends of the Earth International, the oil produced by ExxonMobil is responsible for three percent of all global warming since 1882 -- and two percent of the rise in sea levels. Yet the company has reportedly paid lobbyists $55 million over the last six years to help undermine efforts to fight planet-warming pollution. "ExxonMobil is to climate change what Big Tobacco is to lung cancer," says Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Their biggest crime is not simply putting their head in the sand over global warming but working aggressively and undercover to try to inject uncertainty into what is a powerful consensus among scientists: that global warming is under way."

That same pattern of denial, environmental activists say, is being played out once again in the waters off Alaska, where the devastation caused by the Valdez will continue for years to come. "The ExxonMobil executive team would be right at home at Custer's last stand or the wheelhouse of the Titanic," says Knobloch. "They put forward a combination of arrogance and willful ignorance -- which is a tough combination when all of life on the planet is at stake."

NOTE: We sent members of the I'm From Rolling Stone cast into the field to document America's eco-disasters. The result is a series of four reports from around the country. See a full-index of their work and tell us what you think here.