Q&A: RIKI OTT, Author and Marine Biologist

Aired 07/15/08 In late summer1989 I spent a week living among and interviewing the fishermen and citizens of Cordova, Alaska. Once they'd realized that federal, state and corporate entities were moving too slowly to save their fisheries, many of them had moved heroically to import and place booms around the most vulnerable areas. Fishing was destroyed for that year so many of them were employed by Exxon in that summer's massive cleanup efforts. Though the luckiest among them earned the newly coined designation - “spillionaires,” the natural, social, and economic fabric of Cordova and Prince William Sound have never been the same. Last month, 19 years after the spill -- and two days after climate change scientist James Hansen told Congress that ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel CEOs "should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" for their role in delaying the global response to climate change -- the Supreme Court reduced a $2.5 billion punitive judgment against Exxon for the Valdez disaster to $500 million. Exxon made more than $40 billion in profits last year. RIKI OTT and I took a look at the long sad aftermath of the oil spill -- with an eye toward the broader context of corporate power versus nature and humanity. OTT believes this is the civil rights movement of our day. RIKI OTT Marine biologist, former commercial salmon "fisherma'am" and Author of SOUND TRUTH AND CORPORATE MYTHS: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; NOT ONE DROP: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spillhttp://www.soundtruth.info/