Twenty years later, the first payments for the Exxon Valdez oil spill have gone out. Initially, Exxon was ordered to compensate Alaskans $5 billion dollars. After rounds of appeals and years of delays, Exxon is getting off with paying only $507 million.

Checks ranging from a few hundred dollars to $100,000 are going out to 33,000 individuals. It remains undecided if Exxon should pay interest for the twenty years it delayed the payments.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled much of its 1,266,000 barrels of oil, creating a 12-mile oil slick. Exxon dawdled for days and even weeks without doing anything significant to contain the catastrophe. When bad weather hit, the oil spread deep into the environs.

Although Exxon was hit with $5 billion in fines, its oil spill did at least $7 billion in damage to the environment and wrecked the lives of many Alaskans.

Frank Mullen, an Alaskan Fisherman expressed the sentiment of many:

“Everybody’s very disgusted because of the process and the whacking we got from Exxon and the Supreme Court. Nobody’s thrilled, but nobody’s going to send the check back, either.”

Now after twenty years of litigation, Exxon gets off easy.

There is one other winner in this mess – the lawyers. They get 22% of the $507 million.