Ship owner in Baltimore bridge collapse agrees to pay $102 million for
cleanup
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[October 25, 2024] By
LEA SKENE and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused
the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse have agreed to pay more than $102
million in cleanup costs to settle a lawsuit brought by the Justice
Department, officials said Thursday.
The settlement does not cover any damages for rebuilding the bridge,
officials said in a news release announcing the agreement. That
construction project could cost close to $2 billion. The state of
Maryland has filed its own claim seeking those damages, among others.
The settlement comes a month after the Justice Department sued the
ship’s owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine Group,
both based in Singapore, seeking to recover funds from the cleanup.
The Justice Department alleged that the electrical and mechanical
systems on the ship, the Dali, were improperly maintained, causing it to
lose power and veer off course before striking a support column on the
Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. The ship was leaving Baltimore for
Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss.
Six men on a road crew, who were filling potholes during an overnight
shift, fell to their deaths. Cleanup crews worked around the clock
searching for bodies and removing thousands of tons of mangled steel and
smashed concrete from the bottom of the Patapsco River. The Dali
remained stuck amid the wreckage for almost two months, with collapsed
steel trusses draped across the ship’s damaged bow.
“This resolution ensures that the costs of the federal government’s
cleanup efforts in the Fort McHenry Channel are borne by Grace Ocean and
Synergy and not the American taxpayer,” Principal Deputy Associate
Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement.
The collapse snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of
Baltimore and put many local longshoremen out of work before the channel
was fully opened in June. It interrupted East Coast shipping routes as
the port is one of the busiest in the country, especially for cars and
farm equipment.
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The cargo ship Dali is stuck under part of the structure of the
Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship hit the bridge, Tuesday,
March 26, 2024, as seen from Pasadena, Md. (AP Photo/Mark
Schiefelbein, File)
Grace Ocean and Synergy filed a
court petition just days after the collapse seeking to limit their
legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine
casualty case in history.
Court records show attorneys for both parties said
in a joint filing Thursday that they had reached a settlement
agreement and requested dismissal of the Justice Department’s claim,
which sought $103 million in cleanup costs.
The claim is one of many filed in an expansive liability case that
will ultimately determine how much the ship’s owner and manager will
owe for their role in causing the disaster. The other claims are
still unresolved. They’ve been filed on behalf of the victims’
families, companies whose business has suffered as a result of the
collapse, municipal entities and more.
FBI agents boarded the ship in April amid a criminal investigation
into the circumstances leading up to the collapse.
When it was filed last month, the Justice Department civil claim
provided the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of
failures that left the Dali’s pilots and crew helpless in the face
of looming disaster. The complaint pointed to “excessive vibrations”
on the ship that attorneys called a “well-known cause of transformer
and electrical failure.” Instead of dealing with the source of the
excessive vibrations, crew members “jury-rigged” the ship, the
complaint alleged.
It also noted cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of
cargo shaken loose. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such bad
condition that an independent agency stopped further electrical
testing because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.
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