P&I club criticises US over oil spill

Citation

(1999), "P&I club criticises US over oil spill", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308cab.003

P&I club criticises US over oil spill

P&I club criticises US over oil spill

Keywords Environmental impact, Oil, Pollution

A protection and indemnity club has hit out at the widening gap between the USA and the rest of the world over the handling of oil pollution claims and criticised the behaviour of the US Coast Guard.

Britannia Steam Ship Insurance Association documents the outcome of a number of recent oil spills and their environmental impact, comparing settlement costs of accidents in Europe with incidents in the USA.

"No one would claim that oil spills are not serious and all would agree that every effort should be made to prevent their occurrence," Britannia notes in the club's annual report.

However, studies provide "very powerful evidence against the hysterical reaction to oil spills which is so often seen, most particularly in the USA", Britannia states.

The estimated cost of cleaning up after 17 tons of fuel oil leaked from the wood chip carrier, Kure, last November now exceeds $10m, according to Britannia.

An estimated $9m has so far been spent cleaning up after 400 tons of heavy fuel escaped from the Kuroshima, a reefer ship that grounded during a winter storm in Alaska.

Arbitrary

Some of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment compensation awards have undoubtedly been arbitrary and capricious, the club claims, "related more to a sense of outrage than any real basis in legal theory, economics or science".

Since the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was enacted following the Exxon Valdez spill, a whole new industry has emerged in the USA which profits from oil spills "and in whose interest it is to whip up the greatest possible level of hysteria so as to try to justify the spending of ridiculous amounts of money", the club argues in the annual report.

Critical

The Britannia is highly critical of the US Coast Guard. It describes it as "a uniformed branch of officialdom with quasi-military powers and with no obligation to treat suspects in accordance with normal US rules governing due process in criminal investigations".

The club is particularly alarmed by a recent circular issued by the commandant of the USCG to port captains, which appears to be instructing them to look for criminal violations in the aftermath of every spill.

Whereas evidence points to an improvement in the efforts of tanker owners to avoid oil spills, and the very low or negligible long-term environmental impact from a properly handled incident, these same shipowners are being treated as criminals in the USA, the club continues.

Clean-up in the USA "is about contractors making money and politicians or bureaucrats making reputations; and large and arbitrary penalties being imposed", the club points out.

Britannia describes the situation in the USA as "a cause for grave concern", particularly if other countries try to follow a similar path.

(Lloyd's Casualty Week, Vol. 313 No. 1, 3 July 1998.)