Collaborative Research to Investigate and Document Social Impacts of High-Stakes Litigation Resolution in a Renewable Resource Community

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).On March 24, 1989, the tanker vessel Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, a well-marked navigational hazard in the Valdez Arm of Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the surrounding ecosytem. In various ways, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) continues to affect the PWS's ecosystem and renewable natural resources, as well as individuals, groups, and communities that have built their lives and culture on ecosystem resources. The primary goal of this project is to document how the Supreme Court decision and subsequent disbursement of punitive damage awards in the EVOS case affect communities, groups, and individuals in a renewable resource community. This study builds directly upon research conducted in Cordova from starting in 2000, and continuing through 2009, to create a longitudinal data set designed to document the community change and transformation associated with the EVOS, high-stakes litigation, resolution of litigation, and punitive damage payments. This research project is designed to expand and continue a line of inquiry on human impacts of the EVOS that began in 1989; to examine how prolonged EVOS litigation has been associated with chronic stress, social disruption, and diminished social capital; and to explore how and to what extent resolution of the long-term litigation influence renewable resource communities and groups. The achievement of these objectives will provide empirical data on community change, disaster recovery, and personal adjustments that occur when fragile renewable resource communities are stressed by technological failure and long-term litigation. These results will also provide directives for understanding issues of vulnerability and enhancing the resiliency of renewable resource communities in the twenty-first century.