The energetic educator and conservation specialist from Anchorage was on the shores of Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, helping to organize and direct emergency response on behalf of the local fishing industry.

In his 30 years on the faculty of the University of Alaska, Steiner has gained international prominence as a marine conservation specialist. His outspoken defense of the marine environment, in the face of economic and political pressures to pursue oil and gas development in Alaska's outer continental shelf, recently cost him his job at the University of Alaska.

Steiner resigned from the university in late October after 30 years. The university had stripped him of his federal grant in retaliation for his criticism of resource development.

Steiner said that was a more viable choice than being forced to compromise professional ethics and integrity at a university that receives millions of dollars in donations from resource development industries.

His decision to depart came after a university attorney rejected a claim filed on behalf of Steiner that his academic freedom was infringed upon. Steiner said he was told by administrators at one point to stop being an advocate and refrain from publicly criticizing the university.

University attorney Roger Brunner said that free speech is protected both under university policy and constitutionally, but that free speech "is not freedom from the requirements to do one's job and to respond to reasonable direction."

His university life now apparently behind him, Steiner said he intends to continue with his consulting work on environmental issues, and expects to keep traveling the world to help others prevent and clean up environmental disasters.

The state of Alaska itself "needs to be an aggressive advocate of reduction of carbon emissions," Steiner said in an interview Oct. 26, during which he said he would probably be leaving the university. "The state's economy is dependent on hydrocarbon extraction and export, and that has to change.

"Globally we are at the beginning of the end of the age of hydrocarbons and at the beginning of the age of sustainability," he added. "We will use hydrocarbons for the foreseeable future, so let's raise the bar now on how we will apply them."

Americans pay $3 a gallon at the pump for fuel and $12 through income taxes for other hidden costs of the nation's addition to oil, from health costs from pollution to military ventures to secure oil supplies, he said, referring to a United Kingdom study conducted by the International Center for Technology Assessment.

"I figure it is part of my responsibility to speed this transition to sustainability," Steiner said. "If I can't do it at the University of Alaska, I will do it outside of the university, but it's a tragedy that such work can't be done inside the university."

Steiner, the most senior faculty member in the university's Marine Advisory Program, and the program's only conservation specialist, came to Alaska in 1978 and initially worked as a crab fisherman, he said.

His departure from the university has continued to attract national and international attention from proponents of academic freedom.

His case is being compared to the "Firecracker Boys" episode of 50 years ago at the University of Alaska. In that incident, university scientists who were working under federal grants were fired after the funding agency complained about their public criticism of likely environmental consequences of allowing the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to excavate a new harbor in Arctic Alaska using thermonuclear bombs.

Then, 30 years later, the university did an about face and awarded the scientists honorary doctoral degrees.

The straw that broke the camel's back may well have been Steiner's testimony in August before the White House Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force public hearing in Anchorage.

Steiner was there to advocate on behalf of Alaska's marine ecosystems, reminding the federal panel that oceans are in crisis.

"The overarching ocean policy objective for the U.S. government must be the sustainability of our seas and coasts," Steiner testified. "We need to dramatically reduce our collective ecological footprint in the ocean and soon. Obviously, there has been a tragic disconnect between ocean science and ocean policy, and this must be fixed immediately."

Steiner also urged rewriting the Arctic Policy (National Security Directive 66) signed in the last days of the Bush administration, with a view toward "truly protecting the Arctic, in particular the Arctic Ocean, rather than exploiting it."

Steiner has shown no sign of slowing his efforts to educate the public on the changing environment of the Arctic and problems he sees posed by resource exploration and development.

In a recent interview on the television program Democracy Now, Steiner spoke out about his concern that "the University of Alaska really runs on oil money. I've been somewhat critical of what I consider to be irresponsible oil company proposals and projects and activities here in Alaska and thus the university's punishment for it," he said.

Officials from the University of Alaska and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose grant funds the university withdrew from Steiner, declined to be on the program.

Steiner has been an advocate for the environment for decades.

In the late 1980s, as an associate professor of fisheries for the University of Alaska and Marine Advisory Program agent for Prince William Sound in Cordova, Steiner also advised a command group on spill cleanup, provided technical information and media liaison throughout the spill, as well as worked as a liaison between government officials, fishing and environmental groups and the oil industry involved in the clean up.

"Having someone from the university strongly involved in identifying the damage done by the Exxon Valdez was a big contribution to our work," said Walt Parker, who chaired the Alaska Oil Spill Commission under the Cowper administration.

When the 738-foot Malaysian ship Selendang Ayu ran aground and created a major oil spill near Unalaska Island in 2004, Steiner was again on the scene as a facilitator for the Shipping Safety Partnership and as a conservation specialist at the University of Alaska.

"Steiner's main contribution is providing the scientific information on what is being done to the fisheries," Parker said. "There are others with similar expertise, but they don't speak out as much as he does on behalf of the fisheries."

Steiner's resume of environmental assistance and consultation internationally also includes work in Lebanon, Korea and Japan. He's worked on most every continent. His work over the past three decades has included numerous papers and teaching events, and has earned him a number of honors and awards.

His environmental advocacy includes his speaking out at public hearings, using his knowledge of the marine environment to advise others on how to protect it from damage to begin with.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman.@alaskajournal.com.