$44 million settlement in COSCO Busan spill

$44 million settlement in COSCO Busan spill    San Francisco Bay area government officials announced a civil settlement with the owner and operator of the COSCO Busan, resolving damages, penalties and response costs that resulted from the oil spill that followed the containership striking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 2007.
   The U.S. Justice Department, the state of California, the city and county of San Francisco and the city of Richmond, Calif., signed and lodged a consent decree that requires Regal Stone Ltd. and Fleet Management Ltd., owner and operator of the COSCO Busan, to pay $44.4 million for natural resource damages and penalties and to reimburse the governmental entities for response costs incurred as a result of the 53,000-gallon oil spill.
   Federal and state natural resource trustees estimate the spill killed 6,849 birds, impacted 14 percent to 29 percent of the herring spawn that winter, oiled 3,367 acres of shoreline habitat and resulted in the loss of more than one million recreational user-days.
   The settlement follows earlier criminal indictments brought by the federal government. John J. Cota, pilot of the ship, and Fleet Management were criminally prosecuted. Cota pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to 10 months in prison for negligently causing the discharge and killing migratory birds. Fleet was sentenced in 2010 after pleading guilty in the criminal case and paid $10 million in criminal penalties.