Offshore oil spills have put an unwelcome spotlight on marine transportation of petroleum products.
One involves a record criminal fine for a January 1994 accident off Puerto Rico, the other a Maine spill late last month.
Record fine
A federal judge in San Juan, P.R., fined three corporations $75 million for spilling more than 750,000 bbl of oil in Puerto Rican waters in January 1994, the largest fine ever for an environmental crime.
Last April 25, a federal jury convicted the corporations and a top manager of causing the oil spill. The spill occurred Jan. 7, 1994, after a faulty towing cable broke while a tugboat was pulling a barge laden with 35,000 bbl of No. 6 oil from San Juan to Antigua.
A federal oil spill fund spent $90 million to clean the spill and compensate victims. The judge ordered Bunker Group Puerto Rico, Bunker Group Inc., and New England Marine Services to each pay a $25 million fine and complete a 5 year term of corporate probation. Pedro Rivera, general manger of Bunker Group Puerto Rico, was due to be sentenced separately.
The corporations are part of a group of 50 corporate entities controlled by the Frank family of New York. Justice said, "The Frank companies, which have a lengthy history of environmental violations, were organized into a complex web that allowed the family to shield its assets from criminal fines." U.S. Dist. Judge Hector Laffitte placed the assets of all the Frank companies under his supervision, in order to prevent them from being dissipated or hidden.
In sentencing the defendants, Judge Laffitte said their "recklessly negligent" conduct had caused a spill from which the "marine ecosystem of northern Puerto Rico will probably never recover."
Maine spill
Federal officials blamed pilot error for a tanker collision with a drawbridge that resulted in the spill of about 4,000 bbl of petroleum products into the Fore River harbor at Portland, Me.
The National Transportation Safety Board last week said incorrect instruction from a docking pilot to the helmsman of the Liberian flag Julie N tanker caused the vessel to sideswipe a concrete bridge pillar, tearing a 12 ft hole in the hull and spilling 2,100 bbl of No. 2 fuel oil and 1,950 bbl of marine bunker fuel. The tanker was carrying 210,000 bbl of the heating oil.
Cleanup was still under way at presstime, and state officials banned lobstering in the harbor area.
The tanker, chartered by Global Petroleum Corp., is owned by a unit of Overseas Shipholding Group.
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