SATURDAY, MARCH 25
The spill has now spread to nearly 50 square miles: seven miles long and seven wide. Exxon divers say that at least eight of the ship's 14 tanks have been punctured and that an estimated million barrels of oil—42 million gallons—remain on board. Exxon tried to start pumping the oil into the empty holds of the Baton Rouge but had to give up when the pumping system sprang .a leak. Now salvage experts, marine specialists, and news teams are racing to Valdez from all over the world. Doris Lopez, a small, fiery woman usually seen with a baby on her hip, says in a commercial radio interview that Valdez fishermen have had their boats standing by, ready to help, since dawn. "Why isn't anybody doing any­thing?" she asks. Also on the radio, Dennis Kelso, commissioner of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), calls the spill the realization of everyone's secret nightmare. Alyeska's response, he says, is "inadequate and unacceptable."

Back in Cordova, Steiner has been up all night, talking to fishermen about what they might do if things get really bad. Many of them are down at the docks right now, gearing up their boats to help fight the spill. But all night, Steiner had this feeling of disbelief, a refusal to accept the possibility that Alyeska and Exxon wouldn't have it all mopped up by the end of the day. Now that possibility is sinking in.

On the 70-mile hop to Valdez, he flies over the spill again. It is bigger now, much bigger, and expanding into the southwest. It appears to cover about half the distance to Naked Island, 20 miles out. The island and its surrounding islets are rookeries for throngs of kittiwakes, murres, cor­morants, and puffins. And beyond those first small isles—Steiner really doesn't want to think beyond them right now—are thousands of miles of island and fjord shoreline that flank some of the richest marine habitat in the world.

In alp-rimmed Valdez, the Cessna taxis to a dock 30 yards from the plate-glass windows of the Westmark Hotel coffee shop, and Steiner steps forth into chaos. His intent has been simply to locate the oil spill con­tainment headquarters and learn the plan so that he can take some word back to Cordova's 500 fishermen and their 1,500 dependents. What he finds is that Exxon has rented the hotel's second floor, which now bustles with company personnel setting up computers, consulting charts, thumb­ing through manuals, and keeping people out. Downstairs, federal sci­entists, mainly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its branches, are doing pretty much the same. Steiner thinks about joining them, until he realizes that they've shown up to watch, not to do. The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, which is supposed to be overseeing the containment efforts from its massive Alaska Pipeline ter­minal on the other side of the bay, seems to have no presence in Valdez and won't answer telephone inquiries.

Steiner walks a few blocks to the state building, where the DEC has quadrupled its staff in a day. He talks with Larry Dietrich, the depart­ment's director of environmental quality. The DEC, explains Dietrich, is essentially a research and regulatory agency. "We'll be doing everything we can," he says, "but right now we don't have anything to clean up the oil with!"

Steiner has heard enough. Cordova has about 500fishermen, Valdez about 100. Most of them have boats and all would be willing to attack the slick with Kleenex if they had to. Steiner telephones Cordova. "Don't ask," he says to Grimes. "But listen—I think you better get over here."