Exxon Mobil Corporation

ExxonMobil's Vice President for Safety, Health, and the Environment
today criticized a questionable study on the current condition of
Prince William Sound, Alaska, which was announced in a press release
by the journal "Science."

"Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies conducted by researchers from
major independent scientific laboratories and academic institutions
resoundingly demonstrate the recovery of the Prince William Sound
ecosystem and strongly contradict the news release's claim that
wildlife and aquatic plants continue to suffer as a result of the 1989
Valdez oil spill," ExxonMobil Vice President Frank Sprow said.

"What science has learned in Alaska and elsewhere is that while
oil spills can have acute short-term effects, the environment has
remarkable powers of recovery," he added.

"As a part of our commitment to sound science and to the people of
Alaska, we have continued over the years to monitor the PWS ecosystem.
Oil remnants are only being found where they were known to have
existed at the conclusion of the cleanup and where the U. S. Coast
Guard concluded there was no net environmental benefit associated with
further cleanup eleven years ago. The abundance of biology in close
association with the remnant oil remaining today refutes the notion
that this oil residue has any significant biological effect. The vast
majority of the affected shorelines have no visible oil remnants on
the surface or sub-surface," Sprow said.

Sprow added that shoreline excavation efforts by the Exxon Valdez
Oil Spill Trustee Council indicate that perhaps a total of 26 acres of
buried oil remain in isolated pockets and wave shadows of large
boulders. Since PWS consists of about 5,000 kilometers of shorelines,
this means that about two-tenths of one percent of the shoreline
contains remnant and sequestered oil.

"There simply is no logical basis for concluding that such a tiny
portion of the shoreline could be markedly affecting the PWS
biological community even if it were accessible to plants and
wildlife, which it is demonstrably not. Just as in all previous spills
seen worldwide, the remaining oil is encapsulated, in place and not
bioavailable. It if was leaching into the environment in ecologically
meaningful quantities it would be gone after 14 years. You simply
can't have it both ways," Sprow said.

"Although some researchers present cartoon depictions of how
residual, sequestered oil could reach these species and thus lead to
vague claims of lingering injury to consumer species, field research
examining potential oil contamination in numerous intertidal and fish
species confirms the lack of any such contamination. These data
strongly support our position of a recovered Prince William Sound
ecosystem," Sprow said.

Sprow noted that it is unusual for a scientific journal to adopt
one point of view without recognizing the weight of scientific data
which contradict that viewpoint. "Summary publications tend to lend
themselves to speculative conjecture while scientific papers must
support their conclusions with appropriate technical data. We continue
to believe that scientific forums are the proper venue for rationally
resolving significant scientific issues," he said.

Following the 1989 tanker accident, ExxonMobil retained some of
the world's leading scientists to assess the impacts of the oil spill
on the Prince William Sound (PWS) ecosystem. This research program
documented both the damage and the subsequent rapid recovery of the
Sound in studies which have been published in numerous peer-reviewed
technical journals and presented at professional conferences
throughout the world.

ExxonMobil spent more than $2.2 billion in the cleanup of Prince
William Sound, staying with the cleanup until 1992 when the state and
federal governments declared the cleanup complete. In settlements with
the state of Alaska and the federal government, ExxonMobil also
provided an additional $1 billion for environmental studies and
conservation programs in Prince William Sound.

The following is a list of scientists who have done extensive
studies of PWS. Reporters may wish to contact these scientists for
further comment on this issue:

    --  Dr. David S. Page
        Hydrocarbon chemistry; oil spill response, restoration, and
          recovery
        Department of Chemistry
        Bowdoin College
        College Station
        Brunswick, ME 04011
        dpage@bowdoin.edu

    --  Dr. Robert J. Huggett
        Toxicology; forensic chemistry
        232 Administration Building
        Michigan State University
        East Lansing, MI 48824-1406
        rhuggett@pilot.msu.edu

    --  Dr. John A. Wiens
        Avian ecology
        The Nature Conservancy
        4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100
        Arlington, VA 22203-1637
        jwiens@tnc.org

    --  Dr. Paul D. Boehm
        Hydrocarbon, marine, and forensic chemistry; oil spill
          response, restoration, and recovery
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        255 Bear Hill Road
        Waltham, MA 02451
        boehmp@battelle.org

    --  Dr. Jerry M. Neff
        Marine ecology, biology, and chemistry; oil spill response,
          restoration, and recovery
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        397 Washington Street
        Duxbury, MA 02332-0601
        neffjm@battelle.org

    --  Dr. Ernest L. Brannon
        Salmon ecology and biology
        Aquaculture Research Institute
        University of Idaho
        Moscow, ID 83844
        aqua@uidaho.edu

    --  Dr. Walter H. Pearson
        Marine ecology; herring biology
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        1529 West Sequim Bay Road
        Sequim, WA 98381-9099
        Walter.Pearson@pnl.gov

    --  Dr. William A. Stubblefield
        Aquatic toxicology
        Oregon State University
        1600 S.W. Western Boulevard, Suite 165
        Corvallis, OR 97333-4286
        stubblew@onid.orst.edu