SPILL PROMPTS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
STATE TO DECIDE IF PROSECUTION WARRANTED; INQUIRY FOCUSES ON TANKER CAPTAIN

By DAVID POSTMAN and GEORGE FROST and DAVID HULEN
Daily News reporters

ANCHORAGE- The state has opened a criminal investigation to determine whether anyone involved in the grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez should face prosecution, Gov. Steve Cowper said Tuesday.

Cowper said the state's investigation into the disastrous spill of 11 million gallons of oil last Friday into Prince William Sound will parallel the inquiry already under way by investigators of the National Transportation Safety Board, who spent the day interviewing officers of the Valdez including its captain, Joseph J. Hazelwood.

"The NTSB's purpose is to find out why the accident happened and to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Cowper, who is also a lawyer. "They don't investigate criminal charges."

Garrey Peska, Cowper's chief of staff, said the NTSB has so far refused a state request to share its copies of the ship's logs, charts and licenses of its officers.

"The NTSB told us they were too busy," Peska said on board the plane that was carrying him, Cowper and other officials to Valdez. "Right now, we're going to help them find a little free time."

Attorney General Doug Baily said the criminal investigation has centered on the sobriety and state of mind of Capt. Hazelwood, who turned over the bridge of the Exxon Valdez to the ship's third mate, Gregory T. Cousins.

According to the Coast Guard and Exxon, Cousins was unlicensed to command the vessel through Prince William Sound. The ship was under Cousins command when it veered off course, into the area of rocky reefs. The ship struck one rock, and two miles later grounded on another, Exxon has said.

Earlier this week, Alaska Public Safety Director Art English said that the Coast Guard asked a state trooper to check out a report that Hazelwood had been drinking.

"On the basis of any evidence we have been able to run out, there are no witnesses saying he was drunk or impaired by drugs or alcohol," Baily said. "I'd say something about his performance was impaired or he would not have had another man at the conn in his place," he said.

Among the witnesses who have given statements are the senior crew members on watch that night, and a pilot who was on board to guide the Valdez from the terminal to Rocky Point, according to Baily.

"The pilot is one of the key people," Baily said. "We would be more inclined to rely on the testimony of somebody who is not a subordinate to the captain."

According to Baily, Hazelwood denied in interviews with Coast Guard investigators that he was intoxicated that night, but Baily said he has not been privy to all the reports compiled by the Coast Guard and the NTSB, which conducted further interviews Tuesday.

English said that troopers have not talked to the captain yet.

"We are trying to see the steps of the crew before they got aboard, and talk to the people who may have had contact with the crew," he said. Investigators are interviewing dock workers, cab drivers, bartenders and others.

If no witnesses are found who can testify to obvious signs of impairment, "then all that's left is the blood test," Baily said. "If it's zero there is nothing to extrapolate back from."

Medical experts told the Daily News that too much time may have elapsed between the time of the accident and the administration of a blood test for any scientific calculation of Hazelwood's alcohol level at the time of the accident. A test was not administered until 8 a.m., according to the Coast Guard. English said the trooper who witnessed the test reported it took place at least two hours after the Coast Guard said.

New York motor vehicle and arrest records show a fiveyear history of alcohol problems on the part of the skipper. His drivers' license has been suspended or revoked three times since 1984, and it was under revocation when he boarded the ship Friday evening.

Cousins also has had driving problems, according to Florida records, and he, too, may lose his license if he doesn't pay a $130 reckless driving fine by April 3.

Records from Tampa, Fla., show that a Mississippi trooper stopped a 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity driven by a Gregory Thomas Cousins from Tampa, Fla., doing 90 miles an hour down Interstate 10 last year. A woman who lives at the same address as the man listed on the violation told a reporter that third mate Cousins was her husband.

When Cousins failed to show for an Aug. 22 court date or pay a fine, Mississippi notified authorities in Florida, who have said they will revoke his license if the fine is not paid by next week.

Baily said a team of civil attorneys has also has set up offices in Valdez to gather information about the cause of the spill, the effectiveness of the cleanup and the culpability of Alyeska Pipeline and Exxon for environmental damage caused by the millions of gallons of oil loosed in Prince William Sound.

Alyeska was responsible for implementing a cleanup plan during the first few critical hours of the spill. Cowper and other state officials have criticized that effort as too little, too late. Exxon also may be at fault.

Baily said a lawsuit against Exxon or Alyeska Pipeline is not planned at this time. But the state wants to put together information that would "have a rapid handle on it for the purpose of litigation."

"With or without litigation the purpose is to establish environmental baselines, so any alleged losses can be compared to some starting point," he said.

Depending upon the claims of Prince William Sound fishermen, whose $90 million annual fishery is at stake, the state also could seek damages up to $100 million through the transAlaska pipeline (TAPS) liability fund, an oilindustryfinanced pot of money set aside for a spill.

Under a TAPS settlement, Exxon would pay the first $14 million and the liability fund would pay claims for the next $86 million. Although parties claiming damages need not prove fault, only damages, Exxon's total liability is limited to $100 million unless gross negligence led to the disaster.

Baily said a civil suit probably would not include a claim for punitive damages beyond the $100 million, unless it could be shown that Exxon, its crew members or other responsible parties were guilty of "outrageous conduct" that demonstrated a total disregard for the safety of the vessel or the subsequent attempts to contain and clean up the spill.

The NTSB investigators spent much of the day interviewing Capt. Hazelwood and Third Mate Cousins. Each officer was accompanied by a lawyer, and would not talk about the shipwreck when asked by reporters.

Hazelwood and Cousins both were to appear before the NTSB on Monday, but did not because their lawyers weren't able to make it here from Anchorage, said William Woody, head of the safety board's team. Exxon officials have said the company was hiring an attorney for Hazelwood, but a company spokeswoman would not say Tuesday who the lawyer was or whether the company was hiring lawyers for Cousins and other crewmen being questioned.

Exxon and Coast Guard officials have said repeatedly that they do not know why Hazelwood left Cousins on watch and William Woody, the chief of the fourman NTSB team, would not comment about what he's learned.

As in airplane crashes, the safety board's role is to determine the cause of the shipwreck. Once evidence is collected here, including sworn testimony from witnesses, the board will conduct a public hearing in Anchorage and, eventually, issue a report with recommendations.

Aside from what went wrong on the ship, the NTSB probe also will look at actions by ship controllers in the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic Center and at the way the cleanup has been handled, said Drucella Anderson, a spokeswoman for the NTSB in Washington.

The team consists of three marine investigators and a "human performance investigator" a person NTSB officials say is trained in psychology and looks into things such as fatigue and substance abuse. The team here is the agency's only marine accident group.

The Coast Guard is assisting the NTSB in the investigation, including gathering evidence. Once an investigation is over, the Coast Guard may suspend a vessel or a crewman's license, and if warranted, information can for forwarded to the U.S. attorney for criminal prosecution, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

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