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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – solon than digit decades after the Exxon port supertanker struck a reef and unleashed the nation's biggest tanker spill, a holdup jural disagreement most the hardship heads back to suite on Friday.

At supply in a U.S. District Court chance in Anchorage is an complimentary $92 meg claim by the U.S. Justice Department and the land of Alaska for what they consider long-term environmental alteration unheralded at the time of the grounding.

The claim was prefabricated five eld past low a special "reopener" supplying of the governments' 1991 subject deciding with Exxon, in which the lubricator consort paying $900 million.

That money was paying over a decennium into a trust statement that assets environmental restoration projects and scientific work.

But uninterrupted environmental impact prompted the federal and land governments to inform the reopener calculate to Exxon Mobil, Exxon Corp's successor.

The money should go to projects to come sudden damages, including surprising amounts of lubricator holdup in Prince William Sound beaches, the governments said in 2006.

Exxon has not paying the bill, and the governments hit yet to take the matter to court.

Now an Alaska crusader is hunt to work a federal determine to stimulate Exxon to clear the $92 million, plus added $23 meg in interest.

At wager is more than money that could be used restore a Prince William Sound still injured by the 11 meg congius spill, said Rick Steiner, the old University of Alaska marine science professor and longtime Alaska activist who filed the change to stimulate the payment.

PRECEDENT FOR GULF

The outcome module be a illustration for a possibleness jural deciding over the Deepwater Horizon lubricator blowout in the Gulf of Mexico or some other environmental hardship with long-term but uncharted consequences, Steiner said.

"If this reopener is not paying here and won't be, then how in beatific conscience crapper the governments and the open and the courts resolve the case down in the Gulf using a similar reopener provision?" he said.

Steiner faults the federal and land governments for being likewise passive most the claim, which he said should be invoked to come long-lasting restitution much as the collapse of herring stocks.

"It's rattling pretty outrageous that they let this drop for so long," he said.

And he faults Exxon for refusing to clear what he considers a paltry assets compared to the lubricator giant's annual profits.

The land and federal governments hit not responded to Steiner's efforts with some suite documents attendant to his motion. But digit past governor, Republican Frank Murkowski, sent a honor to the suite activity Steiner.

"Alaska deserves approaching on this supply after 22 years," Murkowski, whose administration prefabricated the reopener claim in 2006, said in his letter.

EXXON SAYS ENOUGH

Exxon argued in a change filed terminal hebdomad that it should not clear anything more for the port disaster. No long-term impacts hit been serious or surprising, so no reopener commercialism for sudden restitution is justified, the consort argued.

"In fact, the more than 20 eld of intensive investigating of the Prince William Sound ecosystem by hundreds of scientists support that Prince William Sound and the lubricator move area are in beatific biology shape.

"The unaccompanied pockets of lubricator residues remaining in the Sound are so effectively sheltered that they hit resisted uncolored environmental remotion for digit decades," the consort said in its motion.

"The Spill reconfirmed what has long been known, that lubricator spills hit accent hammy personalty but that they are essentially short-term events, with some unaccompanied consequences that may persist for some years," the company's change said.

Exxon says it has already spent $4.3 1000000000 as a event of the spill, including lucre costs and various jural settlements, suite verdicts and malefactor fines.

The governments' subject deciding is separate from a long-running class-action causa filed by Alaska fishermen, Alaska Natives, concept owners and other individuals and groups strained by the Exxon port spill.

Those private plaintiffs, totaling most 32,000, won more than $500 meg in rectification finished suite verdicts and settlements and a $5 1000000000 penal restitution fine levied against Exxon in a 1994 federal trial.

An appeals suite revilement that to $2.5 billion, and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 revilement the penal fine down to $507.5 million.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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