Strange tale pointed to alcohol use on tanker
In post-Exxon Valdez era, crew members still imbibe

By ERIC NALDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

Sixteen years after Exxon Valdez Capt. Joseph Hazelwood's drinking habits became international news, another captain has been associated in court papers with alcohol use on a tanker in Prince William Sound.

This time the case is even murkier than Hazelwood's. A galley worker said in a Texas court that she'd discovered alcohol use by the captain and other sailors aboard the tanker Polar California in May as it sailed toward Valdez, Alaska. After she reported it by cell phone to company headquarters in Houston, alcohol was found in her room. A friend said she was set up, perhaps for previously reporting a steward for drinking.

The galley worker alleges she was taken off the ship in Valdez by ConocoPhillips human resources employees. There, she says, she was handcuffed and tossed into a mental institution for five days until a doctor said her condition was "unremarkable" and released her, according to court papers.

Whatever happened -- and none of the parties is talking -- it isn't the behavior one desires on a 925-foot tanker approaching one of America's most highly secured locations, the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline.

"Wow. Well, that's frightening," said John Devens, executive director of the Prince William Sound Citizens' Advisory Council.

The lawsuit -- which ended in a confidential settlement -- is one fragment of a picture the Seattle Post-Intelligencer assembled on continued alcohol use by tanker crews.

Other aspects include union memos that mention alcohol and drug abuse, a crewman's account of an inebriated chief engineer and the recollections of bartenders in Port Angeles, where tanker crews can drink with considerably less worry about gate security than at the pipeline or the refinery ports...."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/oiltankers/217168_polardrinking23.asp

Was Exxon at fault or drunken union members?