Tanker Owner Will Pay Damages

After months of negotiations, the owner of a tanker that ran aground in 1990 and spilled more than 400,000 gallons of oil off the Huntington Beach coast has agreed to pay $16 million in damages.

The money will be set aside for recreational projects in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and county and state parks affected by the spill.

The disaster, Orange County’s worst oil spill, occurred when the American Trader ran over its anchor in February 1990, puncturing the hull and spilling crude oil that closed beaches for weeks, killed at least 1,000 birds and cost millions of dollars to clean up.

A jury in December 1997 ordered the American Trading Transportation Co., also known as Attransco, to pay $18.1 million, but the company appealed.

The agreement announced Tuesday ends that appeal, Deputy Atty. Gen. Sylvia Cano Hale said, and closes a precedent-setting case holding companies financially accountable for damaging the public’s right to go to the beach.

“The American Trader oil spill was the worst in Southern California in 20 years,” Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said in a statement. “This settlement brings long-standing litigation over the environmental disaster to a close . . . [and] leaves intact important legal precedent for coastal protection that will be significant in prosecuting future oil spill cases.”

John Reilly, the lead appeal attorney for Attransco, said “given the jury verdict, we felt it was in the best interests of the public and the private litigants to settle. . . . We negotiated a reasonable settlement.”

The agreement comes in addition to previous settlements by other companies, including British Petroleum, providing more than $11 million for cleanup costs, biological resources damage, partial compensation for lost recreational uses, and half the attorney’s fees and costs through April 1996.

The spill also helped speed passage of a state oil spill act and the creation of the state Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response.

The complaint against Attransco was based on two claims: lost recreational use under the Harbors and Navigation Code and the state Water Code.

In the December 1997 verdict, an Orange County jury for the first time put a dollar figure on the lost enjoyment of a day at the beach, boating in the ocean or surfing, totaling $13.19 per person.

Under the settlement announced Tuesday, the judgment will not be overturned or appealed, allowing the jury precedent of public recreational losses and the Water Code penalty claims to stand, Hale said.