State files second oil-spill suit
By: John Upton
Examiner Staff Writer
January 7, 2009
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| Compensation: A new state lawsuit seeks payment of fines, reimbursement of cleanup costs and unspecified damages related to the 2007 oil spill. (Getty Images file photo) |
SAN FRANCISCO — California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit Tuesday that seeks to recover costs connected to the environmental damage and response efforts resulting from a toxic oil spill in San Francisco Bay from the Cosco Busan container ship.
More than 53,000 gallons of fuel gushed from the vessel’s hull after it struck a Bay Bridge pillar in heavy fog the morning of Nov. 7, 2007.
The Coast Guard has said all other ships obeyed harbor rules that morning and waited for the fog to lift before setting sail.
Cleanup costs from the spill were expected to exceed $60 million, a Coast Guard official told Congress in December 2007. That figure did not include repairing damage caused to the environment and fisheries.
The spill affected 118 miles of coastline, several hundred acres of eelgrass beds and wildlife that included thousands of birds, according to the state’s lawsuit.
“This was a preventable accident that had tragic consequences,” Brown said in a statement.
The suit seeks the payment of fines, reimbursement of cleanup costs and unspecified damages from a number of parties linked to the ship, including Bay Area pilot Capt. John Cota and foreign-based ship operators and owners Fleet Management Inc., Regal Stone Ltd. and Synergy Management Services.
Cota and Fleet Management are also facing federal lawsuits and criminal charges related to the spill.
Their combined criminal trial is due to begin in April, and Cota faces more than a decade in prison if found guilty of committing environmental crimes and making false statements about his medical history to secure his pilot’s license.
Cota’s attorney told The Examiner that various government agencies have unfairly focused blame on his client.
“Yes, there was an accident; yes, there was an oil spill; yes, there needs to be recompense, but our client is continually being made a scapegoat,” attorney Jeffrey Bornstein said.
Attorney Joe Walsh, who is representing Fleet Management, said he was not surprised by the legal action.
A separate state lawsuit was filed in federal court previously on behalf of Caltrans, the state agency that owned the Bay Bridge-protecting fender system destroyed during the accident, according to Christine Gasparac, state attorney general spokeswoman.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in state Superior Court was on behalf of three other state agencies, including the Department of Fish and Game, she said.
An ongoing multiagency effort to quantify the environmental damage caused by the spill is expected to help California determine how much compensation to demand from Fleet Management and other defendants once the results have been compiled.
It might take more than a year before that assessment is finished, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Al Donner. “The trustees are working as quickly as they can,” he said.
One Cosco Busan crewmember still remains in U.S.
After being held as witnesses for more than a year, five Chinese crewmembers who were aboard the Cosco Busan when it collided with the Bay Bridge were allowed to leave the country last month.
One of the six men — the most senior — arrested on material-witness warrants following the November 2007 incident continues to be held, however, according to his attorney.
None of the crewmembers released were charged with any crimes, but had been ordered by a federal judge to remain in Northern California to be witnesses at the trial of Fleet Management Inc., their employer, and Cosco Busan pilot Capt. John Cota.
But when the trial was delayed from November till April, the judge agreed to allow them to give their evidence in depositions before returning home.
Some of the crewmembers doctored documents and gave false statements to investigators after the accident, at the instruction of senior Fleet Management officials, the crewmembers’ attorneys said in federal court filings.
The men were housed in local hotel rooms and apartments by Fleet Management during their stay, according to attorney Jonathan Howden, who represents four of the crewmembers.
Cosco Busan Master Capt. Mao Cai Sun is expected to complete his deposition and return to China before February, according to attorney Doug Schwarz.
— John Upton
Keeping attorneys busy
The Cosco Busan oil spill has produced several criminal charges against:
Cosco Busan pilot Capt. John Cota
- Two federal felony counts for allegedly lying to federal agents about medication use
- Two federal misdemeanor counts of violating environmental laws
Cosco Busan operator Fleet Management Inc.
- Six federal felony counts for allegedly making false statements and obstructing justice
- Two federal misdemeanor counts of violating environmental laws
Lawsuits have also been filed against Fleet Management, Cota and other parties linked to the accident by:
- U.S. Department of Justice (U.S. District Court)
- Caltrans (U.S. District Court)
- California Department of Fish and Game, California Regional Water Quality Control Board and State Lands Commissio (California Superior Court)
- Cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond (San Francisco Superior Court)
- Local crabbers and fishermen (San Francisco Superior Court)
