Oil spill
payments arriving

By Tom Morphet

It pays to read the fine print.

Twenty years after the worst oil spill in U.S. history fouled Prince William Sound, some Haines fishermen are receiving settlement checks from Exxon Valdez litigation. But many others are not.

Salmon fishermen in Southeast and in Bristol Bay are among 3,770 claimants in the “unoiled fisheries” category of the lawsuit against Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

The company, a consortium of seven multinational oil companies, in 1993 agreed to pay $98 million in damages to Alaska fishermen, villagers and other affected parties for its failure to respond adequately to the spill. The recent payout to fishermen in “unoiled fisheries” totals $2.2 million.

According to recently issued settlement documents, about a dozen local fishermen will receive checks from the Alyeska Qualified Settlement Fund. Southeast drift gillnet permit holders will receive $3,237, minus attorney fees, and local fishermen holding Bristol Bay permits will get $1,010 gross. Payments are based on the downward spiral of salmon prices following the spill. The settlement covers the fishing seasons 1989-1991.

Gillnet skipper Mike Saunders last week received a check for $2,752 from the Alyeska fund. Saunders said the claim was so old he wasn’t sure what it was from. He thought it may have been for pollution caused by Alyeska separate from the Exxon Valdez, at the trans-Alaska oil pipeline terminal.

 “I filled out all that stuff that came in the mail, regardless of whether I thought I deserved it or not… If you fished for salmon in Southeast, you were eligible,” Saunders said.

But the names of many Haines permit holders don’t appear on the list of claimants who’ll receive a share of the settlement. There are about 50 permit holders in town.

Other Haines fishermen may have filed “unoiled fisheries” claims under the Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund, a different pot of money. According to Kodiak attorney Matt Jamin, some fishermen filed claims under both settlements. “Subscription to the various funds is an issue,” Jamin said.

About $6 million is to be distributed to claimants in “unoiled fisheries” under the pending Exxon settlement. Payments will be based partly on harvest, so amounts of checks will vary.

Saunders said some local fishermen probably didn’t realize they also qualified for the Alyeska money. Notification to file claims arrived in the mail, he said. “A lot of guys probably just tossed them in the trash.” 

Longtime skippers Greg Bigsby and Norman Hughes are among those. Bigsby threw out out his Alyeska claim, thinking it didn’t apply to him. “There were so few guys who signed it. It looked like junk mail to me. But (Saunders) was optimistic about it 20 years ago. I remember it well.”

Said Hughes: “Back then you were getting so many pieces of mail and they all looked the same. You didn’t know what applied to you and what didn’t...There’s have and have-nots. I’m a have-not.”

Saunders said the settlement share was small compared to the drop in salmon values that followed the spill. Gillnetters made $3.60 per pound on sockeye in 1988, the year before the spill, but values dropped to 75 cents per pound by 1991, he said. “It’s a token, but it’s better than nothing.”