Oil Company Owes $18.1 Million for Spill, Jury Decides

SANTA ANA — Setting a price on the public’s right to enjoy the beaches, an Orange County jury levied $18.1 million in damages and penalties Monday against the owner of an oil tanker that ran over its own anchor nearly eight years ago, causing Southern California’s worst oil spill in 20 years.

In a case that is a first for California, the jury found that Attransco, which owned the American Trader oil tanker, owes beach-goers and boaters $12.8 million in damages for the five weeks that the coast from Huntington Beach to Newport Beach was closed for cleanup.

The jury also found that Attransco should pay $5.3 million on behalf of the Regional Water Control Board for damage to small marine life along the 15 miles of beach and coastline coated by the spilled oil.

Michael Leslie, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, described the verdict as “a real victory.”

“This means that somebody who spills oil and closes beaches will have to stand to account,” he said. “These are real damages. You can put a dollar value on them, and it’s substantial enough to give [oil shippers] reason to be extremely careful when shipping up and down the coast.”

All the money will go into two government-run trust funds to care for beaches and waterways, Leslie said.

The lawsuit was filed in 1991 by California, Orange County and the cities of Newport Beach and Huntington Beach.

David E.R. Woolley, the attorney for Attransco, said the amount of the verdict surprised him.

“I don’t think the evidence was as strong as the jury thought it was,” he said.

Environmental law experts said the verdict was precedent-setting on two fronts. It is the first time a jury has found merit in the legal argument that the public suffers legal damages when oil spills close beaches. And the fine marks the first time that a California jury has put a dollar figure on the loss of microorganisms--such as plankton--that anchor the marine food chain, said Sylvia Cano Hale, a state deputy attorney general.

Jurors said they found Attransco negligent because its employees failed to take sufficient steps to learn the water depth at the mooring and terminal a mile off Huntington Beach.

BP America--the U.S. subsidiary of British Petroleum--and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Liability Fund, which owned the oil, have already paid $9.1 million for programs to restore and protect wildlife habitats, establish a fish hatchery program in Carlsbad, and reimburse public agencies for some of their cleanup costs. That was in addition to $12 million that BP America paid just after the spill for cleanup costs and to compensate private parties who suffered losses.

In a second settlement, platform-owner Golden West Refining Co. paid $4.5 million to the state, Orange County and the cities of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.