Fine levied for oil dumping will benefit Puget Sound

Restoring development-mangled shorelines. Removing a dock that is leaching poisons into a wildlife sanctuary. Educating schoolchildren and adults about the importance of protecting Puget Sound.

Those are a few of the projects to be funded by a fine paid last year by a cargo ship company caught illegally dumping oily wastes, officials announced Wednesday.

It's great news -- but really just a smidgen of what's needed to entirely restore Puget Sound. Of the 134 projects that sought funding from the fine, only 14 got it -- even though all of the proposals were worthwhile, officials involved in the decision say.

They are now appealing for more donations to what they envision as a public and private effort to fund a sweeping restoration of Puget Sound.

"It's going to take bajillions of dollars to implement the solutions that have been identified," said Krystyna Wolniakowski, Northwest director for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which is administering the grants on behalf of federal prosecutors. "We just wanted to get this $1.7 million to work on the ground."

The chain of events that resulted in Wednesday's announcement began when two sharp-eyed inspectors with the state Ecology Department uncovered evidence that a cargo ship owned by Evergreen International, a Panamanian firm, had dumped oil overboard.

Earlier, another ship owned by the firm had been nearby when fishermen reported oil fouling their nets, but the company denied responsibility.

The discovery of a special discharge pipe allowing engineers on the ship, the Ever Given, to dump hard-to-process wastes led to a major federal investigation that ended last year when the company agreed to pay $25 million in fines in five U.S. regions, including Puget Sound.

The company had repeatedly dumped oil and altered record books to conceal the practice, the investigation found. Evergreen pleaded guilty to more than two dozen counts of illegal dumping.

In each of the five regions where the dumping occurred, $3 million of the fine went toward a victims' compensation fund. But $2 million went toward restoration of the local environment, said U.S. Attorney John McKay, the head federal prosecutor for the federal court district based in Seattle.

"Out of something really bad comes some good things," McKay said. "We look at it as continuing to send a message that if you pollute, you have to pay -- and further, that we really care about Puget Sound."

Ecology Department Director Jay Manning said the dumping highlights the effectiveness of Ecology's oil-spill-prevention program. He hailed the planned restoration of hundreds of acres of land at the edge of Puget Sound that once supported biologically valuable salt marsh, but that is now diked off from the Sound.

Manning said that although Ecology inspectors try hard to work in a friendly way with businesses -- and while most businesses want to do the right thing -- there are some firms that simply can't be trusted.

"The real trick for us is differentiating between the two. We have to be smart enough to figure out who (the intentional lawbreakers) are and hammer them," he said. "Enforcement has a very strong place in our set of tools."

Manning promised, "You will see some significant enforcement actions out of us in the near future," although he would not discuss details.

After funding the $1.7 million in grants announced Wednesday, and paying the wildlife foundation's administration expenses, the $2 million fund will be down to about $200,000.

The wildlife foundation, which is chartered by Congress, will then use that as an ongoing fund for donations from philanthropists, corporations, governments and members of the public to help restore Puget Sound, Wolniakowski said.

The backdrop to this is a growing movement to launch a multibillion-dollar Sound restoration program. The $1.7 million from the Evergreen fine will be matched by nearly $1.3 million in separate grants from private and government programs.

"We would like to have the Puget Sound Marine Conservation Fund be a vehicle for anyone who wants to help fund projects in the Sound, whether it's a $10 donation or a $1 million donation," she said. "We hope that fund will grow so we can continue funding projects around the Sound."

To donate, she said, members of the public can e-mail wolniakowski@nfwf.org or call 503-702-0245.

P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com.

Soundoff (Read 1 comment)
How much should paying for Puget Sound restoration depend on fining polluting companies?

Add P-I Local headlines to