‘There’s nothing I can do. We’re helpless.’

MARY LOCHNER

July 03, 2008 at 2:09PM AKST

Ross Mullins did everything a man could do.

He worked hard as a fisherman, starting with a small outfit in 1963, fishing for herring and pink salmon in Cordova.

When a pipeline was proposed to be built to Valdez, he publicly spoke his concerns for fishermen: that there wasn’t enough baseline scientific data to determine what was lost if an accident should occur and that human fallibility and oil tankers were a combination that eventually could spell disaster.

He grew his fishing business. He helped invest in the pink salmon hatchery the community pulled together to build.

The year 1989 was looking to be a good one. Cordova was expecting its biggest run in history. The hatchery was rolled out and ready to go. Prices for fish were good.

Like many others in the community, Mullins had invested in a new engine and gear to make good on the catch.

It didn’t happen all at once. The pieces of Mullins’ life fell apart slowly over time, like a column that retains its stance after a blow until the cracks racing around its surface presage chunks of falling debris.

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the lawyers came, the media, the promises.

Mullins’ 2007 YouTube video posting shows what he recorded in 1989 three days after the spill: An Exxon representative promising, “We will consider whatever it takes to keep you whole.”

Exxon contends it compensated fishermen directly impacted by the spill for their losses through a $300 million payout in 1989. The claim prompts derisive disbelief from Alaska fishermen who saw perhaps one year’s compensation, which fell far short of losses that would mount for decades.

Lifeless water
In the years after the spill, Mullins said, the water in Prince William Sound was crystal clear.

But Mullins said it should have been thick with life.

“I could stand on the deck of my boat, look down in the water and see the bottom 50 feet down just as clear as looking through a window,” he said. “It never was that way before. The water was always soupy and green with life, with plankton, all the basic ingredients that make up the soup of life in the ocean that higher invertebrates feed on.”

In 1992 and 1993, the pink salmon and herring fisheries in Prince William Sound collapsed. The pinks rebounded in a couple years; the herring, not so. Commercial fishing for herring was closed in Prince William Sound in 1993 through 1996, and again from 1999 through 2006.

Mullins saw many a fellow fisherman go out of business after the early ’90s pink and herring fisheries collapse.

“You got payments of $15,000 to $30,000 a year to pay your boat mortgages,” he said. “You get two years where you don’t even break even, where you can’t hardly cover your insurance. What do you think happens? You’re in arrears.”

Some never recovered from the one-two punch of having no fish and plenty of bills. Mullins saw some very quick changes in his community of Cordova fishermen. Some boats were repossessed; some folks went bankrupt. Those who were more fortunate were able to refinance their boats.

Mullins hung on.

But the pieces kept falling.

Road to bankruptcy
After the fisheries collapses, Mullins went through a divorce. His finances kept slipping.

Finally, in 2004 he filed for bankruptcy.

Researchers say that when a person is impacted by a manmade, or technological, catastrophe, the psychological fallout is different from that of a natural disaster.

“The problem is there’s a responsible party,” said Steve Picou, a researcher with the University of South Alabama who studies the social and psychological impacts of catastrophes. “There’s anger, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression; communities really fragment.”

Unlike the celluloid heroes embedded in the American cultural consciousness, Mullins couldn’t just fight a “bad guy” and be done with it. He had to wait.

Living on Social Security and close to the edge, Mullins did what he could. He made symbolic gestures, participating in community events memorializing the oil spill. He tried to get the word out on the Internet.

Early on, he organized plaintiffs directly affected by the spill in an effort to get a fair shake for directly impacted fishermen. He fought the good fight. He held out hope.

Survivors of a technological disaster face denial of their experience, in a way that survivors of a natural disaster don’t, said Duane Gill, a co-author with Picou on social research on the impact of catastrophes. When toxic contaminants are involved, they tend to be invisible, and debates can ensue over whether toxins are related to ongoing problems.

Gill and Picou investigated Cordova after the spill in their research.

“Survivors of a technological disaster have a difficult time because people don’t want to hear about it,” Gill said. “They say, ‘Why don’t you get over it.’ Well you couldn’t get over it when the litigation’s still open or when the fishing hasn’t returned the way you think it should, when you go out and see fewer sea birds, or whatever it is that reminds you this event happened and hasn’t healed yet.”

On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court returned its ruling that the 32,677 plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez punitive damages suit would spread $507.5 million among their number instead of the $2.5 billion returned in 2006 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Faith shattered
Mullins said he felt betrayed; his trust in the government and its justice system, shattered.

He said his share of the award won’t even cover payments for his bankruptcy proceeding.

“I was hoping for this settlement to help bring me to a level where I could finish my life with some dignity,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. There are many people in a similar situation.”

Gill said many survivors will be able to find closure after the Supreme Court ruling, because at least it will be over. But closure is more likely for those who retained strong social and economic resources after the spill, he said.

“It’s not a type A personality can get over that and a type B or C can’t,” Gill said. “It’s at a social and economic structural level as well.”

Gill said he and Picou pioneered peer listener groups that have helped many develop greater resilience in the face of disaster.

“People need to think of what they have. They need to look at their friends and family, the people that love them. And they need to be very strong and understanding that they will be able to cope with this decision and go on with their lives,” Picou said.

That may well be in the future for Mullins and other plaintiffs who have come under financial strain in the years since the spill. But on June 26, a day after the Supreme Court ruling on the Exxon suit, Mullins, who’d done everything he could do, was still reeling.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “We’re helpless. This is a corrupt system that we’ve got.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.