Ocean Cleanup Firm Fined for Harbor Spill

On Friday, Aug. 20, 1993, a company created to clean oil spills proudly led local dignitaries on a tour of its 208-foot, state-of-the-art response ship moored at Port Hueneme.

The ship, dubbed the California Responder, came complete with the latest in oil skimming technology, an extensive satellite communications system and a helicopter pad. The tour that day was also an opportunity to show off the Marine Spill Response Corp.’s regional center on 6 1/2 acres at the port.

But that night, after all the dignitaries went home, the company mistakenly made a real mess in the water when nearly 400 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the California Responder into Port Hueneme Harbor.

It was the first and most embarrassing spill the company--an $800-million oil industry creation--ever responded to.

“We were certainly well-equipped to clean it up,” said Skip Onstad, manager of the company’s southwest regional office in Port Hueneme.

But it proved to be an expensive mess--both financially and public relations-wise. Onstad said the company spent $100,000 in the hours immediately after the spill. The company was also ridiculed for the obvious blunder.

And on Monday, nearly two years later, company officials agreed to pay Ventura County and the state Department of Fish and Game a total of $73,000 in fines and investigative costs to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the district attorney’s office over the spill.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Melinda A. Johnson accepted the settlement terms.

“It is very ironic,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Harman, who helped write the settlement agreement. “They have a very strong reputation. I think they’re more embarrassed than anything else.”

The Marine Spill Response Corp. was formed and is funded by several oil companies. The nonprofit corporation was created in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska and in reaction to federal laws requiring the industry to respond adequately to catastrophic spills.

The industry spent $800 million opening five regional centers on the nation’s coasts. About $60 million was spent to open the Port Hueneme center, which operates on a $10-million annual budget.

Shortly before the spill, officials with the Port Hueneme center conducted the first simulated oil spill on the California coast. They dumped 15 tons of rice hulls into the Santa Barbara Channel to simulate a 105,000-gallon oil spill.

Two months later, after the center’s grand opening in Port Hueneme, workers on duty at the time said a shift change and a failed alarm system allowed 383 gallons of diesel fuel to flow into the harbor. It forced them to use the same high-tech gadgets used during the simulation to clean a real spill--one of their own making.

No lasting environmental damage was done, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. In settling with the district attorney’s office, the company did not admit any wrongdoing.