Exxon Valdez Litigation Records Project

From the Alaska State Archives comes news of the completion of the Exxon Valdez Litigation Records Project. The two-year project appraised and organized 3,500 boxes of Alaska Department of Law court case records, ultimately selecting 918 boxes for permanent preservation. The collection is now organized and its catalog record posted at WorldCat: www.worldcat.org/oclc/856591471

From the Archives’s announcement: “Project staff identified about 2,700 boxes in Juneau that do not have permanent value, and provided appraisal guidelines for both permanent and nonpermanent files still in Anchorage. In accord with the original Exxon Valdez civil settlement consent decree, the state and the United States submitted a detailed plan in 2006 for a proposed restoration project, the Reopener for Unknown Injury. Research to support the reopener is ongoing. Once resolved, the state will be able to dispose of nonpermanent files in Anchorage and Juneau, and permanent files in Anchorage will join those already in the State Archives.

“Project staff also made consistent efforts to reach out to the public, particularly those living in the spill region. Staff contacted cultural agencies to offer information about the State Archives collection and to find out about Exxon-related collections in spill-area communities. To aid those who may want to study the Exxon Valdez incident, project staff created a website (http://archives.alaska.gov/valdezProject.html) to help navigate the spill, the response, and court proceedings.”