The man held responsible for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker crash — which had long been dubbed the nation’s worst environmental disaster — feels no relief that the gushing BP spill could soon make his fiasco pale in comparison.
“What’s mine is mine,” Capt. Joseph Hazelwood told The Post, recalling the crash in Alaska’s Prince William Sound that happened under his watch 21 years ago.
The wreck, in which the tanker struck a reef, pumped 11 million gallons of oil into the ecosystem.
“I had to deal with it the best I could,” said Hazelwood, now 64 and living on Long Island.
He was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil and fined $50,000.
Watching BP execs blame one another for the toxic mess, Hazelwood was reminded of how he was singled out as the sole culprit in 1989.
“Exxon could point at me, the state of Alaska could point at me, the government could point and me and say, ‘It was all his fault,’ ” he said.
“At least with the Valdez, nobody died. Here you had 11 people [rig crewmen] perish, and they’re kind of lost in the shuffle.”