In the first episode of CNO's latest podcast, Slick Science, produced with Cited Podcast, Host Gordon Katic and producer Katy Davis take us back to March 1989, when radio calls for help went out from the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker the size of three football fields that had crashed on rocks not far from the Alaskan coastline. They documented firsthand accounts of life after a monumental oil spill. But what happens after marine life dies and beaches are left covered with oil? Who foots the cleanup bill? How much? And who decides?
In episode two, launched today, the story takes listeners into the courtroom, as 12 ordinary Alaskans decide whether to punish Exxon for spilling millions of gallons of oil in Prince William Sound.
“We've fetched up hard aground, and, uh, uh, Valdez, evidently, we’re leaking some oil,” the captain says, in a clip that invites speculation about the captain’s history of substance abuse.
Linda Hood is one of the jurors Katic and Davis tracked down. She speaks about the incredibly difficult decision before them: determining recklessness and damages.
“We go over everything, and I think it's who we were as people; not quick to judge other people, but to think through,” she says. “You have to figure when you are judging people, you are judging them for the rest of their life.”
As listeners, along with the jurors and lawyers, navigate the trial, questions emerge about the wisdom of having a jury hear this kind of case. Jurors aren’t experts and don’t have the scientific or economic expertise to muddle through something so big.
Who should decide the punishment for Exxon? Will they be held accountable?
Listen to episode two, 12 Angry Alaskans, wherever you get your podcasts. Slick Science: The toxic legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill is a collaboration between Canada’s National Observer and Cited Podcast.
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