12 Gill-Net Fishermen Sue Tanker Owner for $10 Million Over Spill

Charging that their livelihoods have been jeopardized by maritime negligence, a dozen San Pedro-based gill-net fishermen Wednesday filed a $10-million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the owner and leaseholder of the tanker that spilled nearly 400,000 gallons of oil off Huntington Beach last week.

The lawsuit, the third brought against the American Trading Transportation Co., owner of the tanker American Trader, and British Petroleum, owner of the oil, follows those filed by sportfishermen and a group of Newport Beach residents, company officials said.

The gill-netters said the spill not only damaged thousands of dollars worth of nets in the water at the time, but also threatened to harm generations of their catch--halibut, kingfish, barracuda and other fish.

“It’s really bad timing for us--right at the start of halibut season,” said Branko Sindicich, 55, of San Pedro, a 27-year veteran gill-netter who is one of the 12 plaintiffs. “We’re all losing money. . . . With this oil spill, what am I going to do now? I can’t do nothing.”

Howard D. Sacks, a San Pedro lawyer representing the fishermen, said: “For these guys who are out there every day, they’re wiped out right now. They can’t fish there now and a lot of them can’t go anywhere else because their operations are so small.

“They’re stuck,” he said.

U.S. Coast Guard and other officials have prohibited any craft from going near the area of the spill, and the requirement is especially crippling for gill-net fishermen involved in catching halibut, a $2-million-plus-a-year industry. From January to March, the halibut make their way close to shore to spawn.

Gill-netting accounts for about 80% of all halibut landings, state officials said.

In their suit, the fishermen say the spill could mean “permanent ecological damage” because of the “ultra-hazardous activity” on the part of ship operators.

Lt. Reed Smith, a coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Game, agreed that the spill has had an adverse, short-term effect on the fishing industry.

“There’s no doubt they’ve been impacted because they haven’t even been able to go back into the area until (Tuesday) to retrieve their nets,” he said. “But just how severe the long-term effect on the marine population will be, we don’t know yet.”

British Petroleum officials, on the other hand, said there will be no lasting harm. Company spokesman Peter Necarsulmer said their environmentalists are confident there has been “no significant impact on the fisher resources of the area, with the possible exception of fish that may have been in the gill nets at the time--but they’d be dead fish anyway.”

The companies have set up an office in Huntington Beach to process claims that are expected as a result of the spill.

Meanwhile, at Canetti’s Seafood Grotto in San Pedro, a hangout for the men and women who fish the nearby waters, there was angry reaction to the spill.

“I would say that 99% of the gill-netters are not fishing right now,” said Mike Fiamengo, director of the California Gillnetters Assn.

Their boats idled by the blustery weather and the spill, the fishermen lingered over steaming coffee and one by one said their piece about what the spill has done to business.

“It’s really raising havoc with us guys,” said Joe Cracchiolo, one of the fishermen. “We’ve stopped fishing. We keep asking ourselves every day: ‘Shall we go back out today, is it not a good idea yet?’ It’s crazy.”

The fishermen said that the oil has smeared on their nets and other gear and that the damage could run into thousands of dollars per boat. They also said they are concerned that the oil could affect the halibut catch for years to come if the globs of tar sink to the floor of the ocean, where fish are spawning this time of year.

“Besides the beaches, we are the ones most affected by this spill,” Cracchiolo said.

They fish the crescent-shaped area from about Newport Beach to Point Fermin near San Pedro, staying the required one mile offshore so as not to disturb the whale’s migratory route.

“This is our time right now, our season, you might say,” said John Emirzian, another gill-netter. “This could be the death knell for the inshore fishermen.”

Officials have recommended that the gill-netters go five miles west, but that puts them smack in the path of huge tankers and freighters going in and out of Long Beach Harbor, the fishermen said.

“All our little boats are there like little specks, and those ships have to zigzag to avoid hitting us,” said Vito Rinaudo, another fisherman. “It endangers all of us to put so many boats out there.”

They said a day’s catch is anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds, and at $2.45 a pound, their losses run from $500 to $1,225 a day per boat.

They go out by 4 a.m. to check their nets and haul in any catch from nets they have set the day before. Some of them lost their nets when cleanup skimmers ran over them, they said, and other nets were ruined by the oil.

They said that one of the gill-netters had his boat out when the spill happened and that “there’s oil all over his boat and his gear. He’s ruined.”

The spill is just the latest blow to the gill-net industry.

Environmentalists charge that the narrow-weave nets that are weighted to extend upright in the water, often entangle unintended marine life such as sea lions, harbor seals and porpoises. The criticism has culminated in an ongoing ballot drive to ban the controversial fishing method altogether in Southern California coastal waters.

Sport and commercial fishermen, in a turf battle with the gill-netters, complain that their fishing competitors take an inordinate share of halibut and waste marine resources by catching fish that are not marketable.

But at Canetti’s, the talk of the spill’s harm overshadowed all other conversation.

Most of the fishermen own their own boats, and some of them have small crews working for them, they said.

“We go two weeks without working, and it really puts us back,” said fisherman Vince Lauro. “More or less we’re unemployed.”

Said Bob Aguilar, another fisherman: “We’ve all got bills to pay, families to support. I have three kids. We live day to day. We’re selling by the pound, so you can imagine how it is.”