Oil Spill Victims Say Money a Long Time Coming

The Hilton Waterfront hotel in Huntington Beach is waiting for $350,000.

Dale Sleight, a former lobster fisherman, is expecting $35,000.

Douglas Edlund, a Newport Beach condominium owner, is owed $6,500.

When an oil tanker spilled 416,000 gallons of Alaskan crude along Orange County’s coast in early 1990, hundreds of beachfront businesses, commercial fishermen and property owners sued for $14 million in damages.

Four years ago, the oil company, BP America Inc., and the owners of the American Trader tanker agreed to pay $4 million. Still, none of the plaintiffs has collected a penny.

The case has dragged on for so long that several of the original plaintiffs have died.

“They keep telling me, ‘One more thing, one more thing and we’ll be able to give you the money,’ ” said Sleight, who lost his business to the oil slick. “It’s ridiculous. Are they waiting for us all to die?”

A claims agent with Gilardi and Co., the firm hired to distribute the settlement money, said Thursday that the checks were in the mail.

Lawyers who represented the 250 plaintiffs said the settlement took so long to distribute because it was difficult to determine who was eligible to collect and how much they were owed.

“You had people who were boat owners, people who were individual fishermen, people who were fish processors,” said Marc M. Seltzer, one of two lead plaintiffs’ attorneys on the case. “There were many, many different types of businesses and individuals involved in this case. One of the reasons it took the time it did is we wanted to do a careful job to make sure the processing was accurate.”

The American Trader was carrying more than 24 million gallons of oil the afternoon of Feb. 7, 1990, when it ran over its anchor, punching two holes in the hull.

The oil blackened the sand along 15 miles of Orange County coastline, from Sunset Beach to Crystal Cove. The worst of the spill hit Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Bolsa Chica State Beach, where the shore was closed for four weeks. The slick killed thousands of marine creatures and birds.

Vacationers canceled their hotel reservations. Tour boats and Catalina-bound ferries stayed in their harbors. Commercial fishermen were stranded on land.

The spill could not have happened at a worse time for the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort, which had just launched a marketing campaign in advance of its July 1990 opening. Advertisements referred to the shoreline as an “8 1/2 -mile lap pool.”

“We had to pull all of that,” said Shawn Millbern, a senior vice president at the Robert Mayer Corp., which owns the 290-room Hilton. “It was a nightmare.”

Among the hardest hit were 18 dory fishermen who launched their small boats from Newport Beach. Seven fishermen are left operating. Some, like Sleight, were forced out of business. The names of the dead roll off doryman Frank Leal’s tongue: Tim, Mitch, Jay, Little David, Uncle Doug, Uncle Jack....

Like most who haven’t been paid, Leal doesn’t know whom to blame.

“I don’t know what to think, to tell you the truth,” said Leal, who expects to receive about $20,000 for lost wages and damaged equipment. “I guess they think that if they put us off long enough, we’ll go away. But we were probably affected more than anybody else.”

The settlement money sat in an escrow fund for four years, collecting minimal interest, while a court-appointed firm reviewed claims and decided how much each plaintiff deserved. Nearly everyone is getting less than they filed claims for.

Hilton officials estimated that the oil spill cost them $2.7 million, but the hotel will collect $350,000, the highest award. The plaintiffs have been told they could receive even less than the court determined, depending on how much is left after lawyers’ fees and other expenses are taken out. The two law firms that worked on the case are being paid a total of $230,000 for work since 2002 connected to the distribution of the settlement, court records show.

Minus lawyers’ fees and other costs, there is about $3.6 million left to distribute among 196 claimants, Seltzer said. The settlement distributions were approved by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher on June 30.

Legal experts said the delay in delivering money to victims seemed excessive.

“Four years seems like a long time to distribute a class-action fund consisting of only 200 claims,” said Bill Rubenstein, a law professor at UCLA. “Even if each claimant is unique, you should still be able to figure it out when there’s 200 of them.”

State, federal and local governments settled their lawsuits by 1999 for $30 million, $16 million of which was paid by the tanker’s owner, Attransco Inc.

Several people, including the Hilton’s Millbern, said they felt frustrated by their lawyers and the claims agent for taking so long.

Lobster fisherman Sleight said the other lead plaintiffs’ attorney on the case, Gretchen Nelson, told him to stop calling for updates. Nelson did not return repeated calls for comment.

Sleight said he’ll welcome the money but doesn’t expect it to change much about his life.

“The amount they say they’re going to give me doesn’t amount to squat now,” he said. “Back 16 years ago, it might’ve bought me something, maybe put me back on my feet or something.”

Sleight said he lost more than 50 lobster and crab traps during the spill. Unable to make ends meet, his life unraveled.

“It cost me my marriage. It cost me my livelihood of being a fisherman. It cost me lots of money. It basically completely changed my life,” he said.

He fished in Alaska for a few years and then tried farming in Washington. He returned to Orange County and remarried. He works as a superintendent for a local construction company. He can’t bear to go back to the sea full time.

Leal was incredulous when told the checks had been mailed.

“I’ll be darned. Did they say my name was on the list? I wouldn’t be surprised if they crossed me off,” he said. “That’d sure be nice to get something after all this time.”

Leal said the settlement he expected to get wouldn’t come close to making up for the years of hardship he and his family suffered after the oil spill. But at least he’ll finally be able to put the memory behind him.

“I’d just like to get it over with and get it in the past, and not even think about it again, to tell the truth,” he said.