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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2020
In the face of technology failures in preventing oil from reaching beaches and coasts after catastrophic oil spills in the 1960s and early 1970s, the oil industry and governmental officials needed to quickly reconsider their idea of prevention. Initially, prevention meant stopping spilled oil from coating beaches and coasts. Exploring the presentations at three oil-spill conferences in 1969, 1971 and 1973, this idea of prevention changed as the technological optimism of finding effective methods met the realities of oil-spill cleanup. By 1973, prevention meant stopping oil spills before they happened. This rapid policy transformation came about because the oil industry could not hide the visual evidence of the source of their technology failures. In this century, as policymakers confront invisible pollutants such as pesticides and greenhouse gases, considering ways to visually show the source of the pollution along with the effects could quicken policy decisions.
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of The Journal of Policy History who helped me expand my thinking about the policy process. More specifically, I want to thank Amy Hay and my summer 2017 cohort at the Rachel Carson Center for reading the many drafts of this paper. Also, I would like to acknowledge my funding sources: NSF’s IGERT Fellowship Program, the Historical Society of Southern California, UCI’s Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.
1. In January 1969, a well in the Santa Barbara Channel blew out and spilled millions of gallons of oil onto the Santa Barbara coast. The responders were unable to contain or remove oil before it reached the shore. See Spezio, Teresa Sabol, Slick Policy: Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill (Pittsburgh, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2. Full disclosure: I worked for an engineering consulting firm, CDM Smith, which received a contract to audit offshore installations for environmental, health, and safety compliance. I visited the offshore oil rigs and platforms while still a graduate student and prior to the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
3. See Lindblom, Charles E., “The Science of ‘Muddling Through.’” Public Administration Review 19, no. 2 (1959): 79–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Spezio, Slick Policy, 24–46. Michael Kraft, Environmental Policy and Politics (London, 2015), 7–8.
4. Congress has never passed a moratorium on oil drilling in federal tidelands except for marine sanctuaries, regardless of the party in power. Republican and Democratic presidents have signed executive orders banning oil development. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Sarah Palin and others used the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!” to show their support for drilling in federal waters. As mentioned earlier, the Trump administration opened up federal tidelands off all states except Florida.
5. In the case of federal tidelands policy, these iron triangles and/or issue networks are negotiated based on many issues that have to do with the fossil-fuel-based economy along with environmental concerns. Oil prices, national security, instability in the Middle East, and myriad other issues are part of the policy process. See Paul A. Sabatier and Christopher M. Weible, Theories of the Policy Process (Colorado, 2014).
6. Sabatier, “Knowledge, Policy-Oriented Learning, and Policy Change: An Advocacy Coalition Framework,” Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization 8, no. 4 (1987): 650.
7. At the same time, the USEPA was creating requirements for industries to minimize its discharge of pollutants into waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act of 1972.
8. See Bohme, Susanna Rankin, Toxic Injustice: A Transnational History of Exposure and Struggle, (Berkeley: 2015)Google Scholar.
9. See Cox, Thomas C., “The Crusade to Save Oregon’s Scenery,” Pacific Historical Review 37, no. 2 (1968): 179–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gabrielle Barnett, “Drive-by Viewing: Visual Consciousness and Forest Preservation in the Automobile Age,” Technology and Culture 45, no. 1 (2004): 30–54.
10. The Exxon Valdez grounded in Prince William Sound in Alaska in March 1989. Between eleven and thirty-two million gallons of oil poured into the waters and covered one thousand miles of the Alaskan coast. The Deepwater Horizon spilled 186 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. “U.S. National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling Report to the President” (Washington, DC, 2011), 132–33.
11. See Morse, Kathryn, “There Will Be Birds: Images of Oil Disasters in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of American History 99, no. 1 (2012): 124–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12. Blumer, Max, “Oil Pollution of the Ocean,” in Oil on the Sea: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Scientific and Engineering Aspects of Oil Pollution of the Sea, ed. Hoult, David P (New York, 1970), 5 Google Scholar.
13. To show this fact, one Navy researcher referenced a spill in 1754 in the Caspian Sea to show that spills have always occurred. This conference still occurs on a triennial basis. It is known as the International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC). The federal government and the oil-industry sponsor the conference. Dorrler, J. Stephen, “Limited Oil Spills in Harbor Areas,” in IOSC Proceedings (New York, 1969), 151–56Google Scholar.
14. In this article, the oil industry includes the oil companies actively exploring and producing oil from offshore installations throughout the world and/or transporting oil using supertankers in the open ocean.
15. In March 1967, the Torrey Canyon grounding off the Cornish coast spilled oil onto the Cornish and Brittany coasts. Booms and dispersants failed to contain the oil near the tanker. See Smith, J. E., Torrey Canyon: Pollution and Marine Life (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar. L. P. Haxby, “Industry Research and Response Plans.” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 11.
16. This number was an estimate since prior to the development of the National Contingency Plan during the Johnson Administration, no legislation required responsible parties to report oil spills to a central US agency. In addition, the number of oil spills in water has not decreased, but the number of large spills in the ocean has decreased. K. E. Biglane, “A History of Major Oil Spill Incidents," in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 5.
17. In 1969, the organization reported between three and seven spills per week in the Gulf of Mexico from its daily reconnaissance flights. Most spills in the Gulf came from ineffective separation of oil from production water on the platforms. Albert G. Stirling, “Prevention of Pollution by Oil and Hazardous Materials in Materials in Marine Operations,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 48. U.S. Geological Survey, Report on Chevron’s “C” Platform Fire Main Pass Block 41 Field: Outer Continental Shelf Gulf of Mexico Off Louisiana (New Orleans, 1971), 19–20.
18. Rea, W. F., “U.S. Coast Guard Oil Pollution Prevention Program,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 1Google Scholar.
19. Blumer, “Oil Pollution of the Ocean,” 7.
20. The American Petroleum Institute (API) had long set the agenda for the U.S. oil industry. One of the largest trade organizations, the API provided funds to develop CDR technologies. It collected comprehensive information on crude oil production, developed standards for equipment, and collected statistics on oil company expenditures for its member companies. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Public Works, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Committee on Public Works—Water Pollution—1969 (Part 4), 91st Cong., 1st sess., 27 and 28 February; 3 and 10 March; 20 and 23 May; and 4 June 1969, p. 1238.
21. Ibid., 1262–63.
22. Crossley Surveys Inc., “Report on Air and Water Conservation Expenditures of the Petroleum Industry in the United States 1966–1970” (Washington, DC, 1971), 5.
23. Allen Cywin, “Federal Research and Development Program for Oil Spills,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 18–21.
24. They still spend research dollars on dispersant technology.
25. Gammelgard, P. N., “Seminar Objectives and Scope: An Industry Viewpoint,” in Proceedings: Industry Government Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents (Washington, DC, 1970), 4 Google Scholar.
26. Kerryn King, “Opening Remarks,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 4. The conference now known as the International Oil Spill Conference still occurs on a triennial basis. It will be held in New Orleans in 2021. (www.oisc.org) The slogan is “Prevent. Prepare. Respond. Restore.”
27. Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik M., Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (New York, 2010), 14–16 Google Scholar. “Kerryn King, 68, Dies: Ex-Manager at Texaco, New York Times, 31 March 1986.
28. In March 1968, the Ocean Eagle grounded off San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico and released three million gallons of oil that covered sixteen miles of beaches.
29. Cywin, “Federal Research and Development Program for Oil Spills,” 22.
30. L. P. Haxby, “The Industrial Viewpoint,” in Proceedings: Industry Government Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents, 11.
31. Only two groups in the subcommittee—the joint conference planning and liability and indemnification—did not directly involve CDR technology research. Ibid., 12.
32. P. C. Walkup, L. M. Polentz, J. D. Smith, and P. L. Peterson, “Study of Equipment and Methods for Removing Oil from Harbor Waters,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 241.
33. Gerard P. Canevari, “General Dispersant Theory,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 171.
34. As the response to the Deepwater Horizon shows, researchers continue to be flummoxed by the oil-water interface. The advent of supercomputers had assisted in advancing knowledge, but the solution still remains as far as the moon from the Earth.
35. R. G. J. Shelton, “Dispersant Toxicity Test Procedures,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 191.
36. Gerard P. Canevari, “The Role of Chemical Dispersants in Oil Cleanup,” in Oil on the Sea: Proceedings of a symposium on the scientific and engineering aspects of oil pollution of the sea, 50.
37. Canevari, “General Dispersant Theory,” 176.
38. T. A. Murphy, and L. T. McCarthy, “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Oil-Dispersing Chemicals,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 208.
39. L. R. Benyon, “Evaluation of Dispersants,” In IOSC Proceedings (1969), 209–15.
40. Moye Wicks III, “Fluid Dynamics of Floating Oil Containment by Mechanical Barriers in the Presence of Water Currents,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 55.
41. W. E. Lehr and J. O. Scherer Jr., “Design Requirements for Booms,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 117. The development did not happen by this date. In 2020, researchers have yet to develop booms that meet these design standards.
42. Interestingly, Battelle scientists considered dispersants a removal technology, although dispersants do not remove oil but cause it to disperse into the entire water column or sink to the ocean floor. Sarah C. Bagby, Christopher M. Reddy, Christoph Aeppli, G. Burch Fisher, and David L. Valentine, “Persistence and Biodegradation of Oil at the Ocean Floor Following Deepwater Horizon,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 1 (2017): E9-E18.
43. Walkup, et al., “Study of Equipment and Methods for Removing Oil from Harbor Waters,” 237–48. F. H. Meijs, L. I. Schmit Jongbloed, and H. J. Tadema, “New Methods for Combatting Oil Spills,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 263–70.
44. A kick is a sudden change in pressure in the well, which usually resulted from improper mud density, a high-pressure gas pocket or the loss of drilling fluids to a fracture in the geological formation.
45. J. V. Langston, “Training Program to Improve Well Control Operations,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 140. Langston spent thirty years with Humble and Exxon working on well blowout prevention.
46. C. G. Cortelyou and H. A. Bernard, “Conference Summary,” in IOSC Proceedings (1969), 343.
47. In the twenty-first century, the oil industry still spends hundreds of millions of dollars on dispersant technology. Most is spent so the oil does not reach beaches and wetlands or coat birds with oil. Photographs of oil-covered birds have become icons of large spills. See photographs from the Santa Barbara spill and the Exxon Valdez. Aesthetics remains an important issue with large spills.
48. Haxby, “The Industrial Viewpoint,” 128.
49. C. G. Cortelyou, “Significance of Tovalop,” in Proceedings: Industry Government Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents (1970), 147.
50. “After Leading WED since 1979, Director Tom Murphy Steps Down,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/news/june99/00retire.htm.
51. Thomas A. Murphy, “Problems with the Use of Chemical Dispersants for Handling Oil Spills,” in Proceedings: Industrial Government Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents (1970), 154.
52. K. E. Biglane, “Comments on Industry Government Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents,” in Proceedings: Industry Seminar Oil Spill Treating Agents (1970), 125.
53. The document would be published in 1970. A second edition would be published in 1972.
54. Treating agents included dispersants, sinking agents, sorbents, combustion promoters, biological degrading agents, gelling agents, and beach cleaners.
55. Battelle Memorial Institute is a nonprofit company that works on issues of science and technology. For example, Battelle classified Union Carbide–supplied asbestos as a sinking agent, sorbent and combustion promoter. The compendium authors’ claimed that asbestos, long used as a flame retardant, would burn without any “ignition or flame propagation.” Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Oil Spill Treating Agents: A Compendium (Richland, 1 May 1970), 105, 119, and 159.
56. Ibid., 23–24.
57. Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Oil Spill Treating Agents Test Procedures: Status and Recommendations (Richland, May 1, 1970), 1 Google Scholar.
58. Edmund Muskie to Walter Hickel, 10 December 1969, Edmund Muskie Papers (Edmund Muskie Archive, Lewiston, ME). In this letter, Muskie questions how the conference participants were chosen, the cost of the conference, and any stipends given to government employees.
59. Absolute liability is liability without fault. The government imposes absolute liability when an individual or business acts in a manner that it considers contrary to public policy, even though the action may not have been intentional or negligent.
60. Crossley Surveys Inc., “Report on Air and Water Conservation Expenditures of the Petroleum Industry in the United States 1966–1970,” 5.
61. Two major blowouts occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 1970. On 10 February 1970, wells on Chevron Platform Charlie went out of control and spewed oil and natural gas into the air. For one month, fire consumed most of the oil and natural gas from the wells. Because of air pollution and safety issues involved with closing the “wild” wells, responders extinguished the fire on 10 March. Oil reached the Breton Islands, but the current of the Mississippi River flushed the majority of oil into the Gulf of Mexico away from shorelines. To keep birds off beaches that accumulated oil, Chevron stationed responders to scare birds from landing with firecrackers and gunshots. Responders used dispersants, booms, and skimmers to control the oil, but with little luck. After much trial-and-error, the responders determined that the only defense involved removing floating oil in daylight with good weather and calm seas. In a separate episode in December 1970, eleven wells on Shell Oil’s Platform B in the Gulf of Mexico went wild and burst into flames. The episode killed five workers and thirty-seven were seriously burned. Knowing that skimmers and booms did not work, Shell created a plan to keep the fire burning to consume the oil. For 155 days, responders worked to keep the fire burning at a level that did not endanger the structural integrity of the platform or harm the workers who pumped drilling mud into the wells or drilled relief wells. At the same time, the oil that did not burn, escaped from the area where it traveled and entered Timbalier Bay off Louisiana. Responders used skimmers, booms, and dispersants to stop the spread of the unburned oil. Dagmar Schmidt Etkin, “Historical Overview of Oil Spills from All Sources (1960–1998),” in IOSC Proceedings, no. 1 (1999): 1098–99. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Water Quality, Oil Pollution Incident, Platform Charlie, Main Pass Block 41 Field, Louisiana, (Washington, DC, 1971), 5–6Google Scholar. Tyler Priest, The Offshore Imperative: Shell Oil's Search for Petroleum in Postwar America (College Station, 2007), 145–48.
62. David Basco, “Pneumatic Barriers for Oil Containment under Wind, Wave, and Current Conditions,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 381.
63. In 1971, environmental toxicology and the ability to detect chemicals in water and soil were emerging sciences; therefore, in some cases the science did not yet exist. J. R. Blacklaw, J. A. Strand, and P. C. Walkup, “Assessment of Oil Spill Treating Agent Test Methods,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 253.
64. Ibid., 259–60.
65. C. H. Henager, P. C. Walkup, J. R. Blacklaw, and J. D. Smith, “Study of Equipment and Methods for Removing or Dispersing from Open Waters,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 413. The researchers were correct. The use of dispersants continues to be an active field of study. Spill responders unsuccessfully used dispersants during the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
66. W. E. Betts, H. I. Fuller, and H. Jagger, “An Integrated Program for Oil Spill Cleanup,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 503.
67. Ibid., 504.
68. Across town, the Senate and the House were in hearings to toughen water pollution regulations and the Clean Air Act of 1970 passed Congress in December 1970.
69. William K. Tell, “Summary of Laws and Regulations Governing Spills and Discharges of Oil,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 3.
70. Gordon W. Paulsen, “The Oil Pollution Problem from the Viewpoint of Marine Insurance,” In IOSC Proceedings (1971): 46. Paulsen, “The Oil Pollution Problem from the Viewpoint of Marine Insurance,” 47.
71. Gerard P. Canevari, “Oil Spill Dispersants: Current Status and Future Outlook,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 263.
72. R. W. Neal, G. R. Schimke, and D. L. Corey, “A Joint State-Industry Program for Oil Pollution Control,” in IOSC Proceedings (1971), 148.
73. See R. D. Kaiser and H. D. Van Cleave, “Methods and Procedures for Preventing Oil Pollution from Onshore and Offshore Facilities”; Paul M. Hammer, “Prevention of Marine Pollution through Understanding”; Donald J. Leonard, “Development of Tank Vessel Overfill Alarm Instruments”; Wadsworth Owen and William Leaf, “Oil Spill Prevention and Detection Using an Instrumental Submersible.” All in IOSC Proceedings (1971).
74. In my engineering work, I had the opportunity to visit and audit offshore oil rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the Deepwater Horizon accident. During the visits, I was impressed at how the workers took precautions to stop spills of oil and other contaminants into the water. I remarked on their diligence. Most rig workers replied that if any oil was spilled, the evidence could be seen for miles and there was no method to collect or control the oil. They spoke of company policies that were part of their training.
75. Environmental groups could not stop the production and use of oil; it is integral to the economy.