Another lawsuit has been filed in the oil spill from the Cosco Busan, this time by California state agencies seeking compensation for environmental damage.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed the latest lawsuit in a California Superior Court in San Francisco on behalf of the state Department of Fish and Game, the State Lands Commission and the State Water Boards.
The case centres on the 4,450-teu containership Cosco Busan (built 2001), which hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge more than a year ago and spilled more than 200 tonnes of bunker fuel.
“This was a preventable accident that had tragic consequences,” Brown said. “The Cosco Busan crashed into the Bay Bridge, polluting our waters and killing thousands of birds.”
The lawsuit's defendants include Regal Stone, the Hong Kong-based owner of the Cosco Busan, as well as manager Fleet Management and pilot John Cota, as well as others. A spokesman for the companies and a lawyer for Cota could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
The Cosco Busan hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge in November 2007.
The suit seeks to recover the cost of responding to the spill, including cleanup of 90 kilometres of rocky intertidal coastline, 84 kilometres of beaches, 16 kilometres of salt marsh and several hundred acres of intertidal eelgrass beds.
Responders found 1,859 dead birds and collected 1,084 live ones, of which 418 were released.
The civil complaint does not say how much compensation the state is seeking.
"To date, the state has spent countless resources from the Oil Spill Response Trust Fund on the clean-up and assessment of natural resource damages resulting from the massive oil spill," the attorney general's office said.
Also named in the lawsuit is South Korea's Hanjin Shipping, which has been identified as the vessel's charterer and, according to the lawsuit, owner of the spilled oil.
Cyprus-based Synergy Marine also is listed as a defendant. It had been listed in some sources as manager and owner of the Cosco Busan, although Equasis now lists Regal Stone and Fleet Management.
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