The Department of Justice announced Thursday that the operators of the vessel that damaged Baltimore’s Key Bridge in March have agreed to pay roughly $102 million in costs associated with the federal response.
Federal prosecutors say the Dali vessel’s owners and operators, Singaporean businesses Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, will pay $101,980,000 to settle civil accusations made against them by the Justice Department in September.
The civil probe is separate from the department’s ongoing criminal investigation into the actions that led to the vessel colliding with the bridge.
The container ship Dali collided with one of the piers on the Key Bridge early on March 26, causing it to collapse and killing six construction workers who were patching potholes on the span. Two other employees survived the tragedy.
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The collision hampered passage into the Port of Baltimore for weeks as debris obstructed other ships. Dozens of federal, state, and municipal entities responded, removing about 50,000 tons of steel, concrete, and asphalt from the channel and Dali, according to the DOJ.
Benjamin Mizer, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General, described the incident as “one of the worst transportation disasters in recent memory” and stated that the settlement comes barely over a month after the litigation began.
“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,” he said in a statement.
The settlement resolves the United States’ claims for civil damages under the Rivers and Harbors Act, the Oil Pollution Act, and general maritime law.
According to a press release from the DOJ, the settlement funds will go to the US Treasury and the “budgets of several federal agencies directly affected by the allision or involved in the response.”
“This is a tremendous outcome that fully compensates the United States for the costs it incurred in responding to this disaster and holds the owner and operator of the Dali accountable,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement.
“The prompt resolution of this matter also avoids the expense associated with litigating this complex case for potentially years,” Boyton added.
The compensation excludes damages incurred during the restoration of the bridge, which was owned by the state of Maryland, according to the DOJ. The DOJ stated its attorneys have filed a claim for those damages on behalf of the state.
According to cost estimates released by the Maryland government, the bridge’s rehabilitation will cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, Shailen Bhatt, administrator of the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, stated in May.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Baltimore’s Key Bridge crash.
A preliminary study provided by the EPA in May discovered that the Dali encountered two power outages while moored, 10 hours before the incident that toppled a portion of a bridge span.
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