Exxon oil spill: Nearly 20 percent of the 33,000 fishermen who triumphed in court that day are dead ... and unpaid

Exxon Oil Spill Case May Get Closure | Almost 20 Years After Valdez Wreck, Justices to Weigh In | By Robert Barnes | Washington Post Staff Writer | Sunday, February 24, 2008; Page A01

When a federal jury in Alaska in 1994 ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion to thousands of people who had their lives disrupted by the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, an appeal of the nation's largest punitive damages award was inevitable.
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In the time span of the battle -- 14 years after the verdict, nearly two decades since the spill itself -- claimants' lawyers say there is a new statistic to add to the grim legacy of the disaster in Prince William Sound: Nearly 20 percent of the 33,000 fishermen, Native Alaskans, cannery workers and others who triumphed in court that day are dead.

"That's the most upsetting thing, that more than 6,000 people have passed and this still isn't finished," said Mike Webber, a Native Alaskan artistic carver and former fisherman in the Prince William Sound community of Cordova. "Our sound is not healthy, and neither are the people. Everything is still on the surface, just as it was."

"The bottom line,'' said Tim Joyce, the mayor of Cordova, where half of the town's 2,400 full-time residents are parties to the suit, "is that there is still oil on the beaches. And this lawsuit still isn't finished." ...
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"I'm a capitalist, I'm a conservative Republican, I am pro-development and pro-industry," said Palin, who is herself a former commercial fisherman once party to the suit. "But consider what Exxon has made in terms of profits in all these years. The American judicial system came down with this judgment, and they've appealed and they've appealed and they've appealed." ....