The settlement does
not cover any damages for rebuilding the bridge, officials said in a news
release announcing the agreement. That construction
project could cost close to $2 billion. The state of Maryland has filed its own
claim seeking those damages, among others.
The settlement comes a month after the Justice Department sued the
ship’s owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine Group, both
based in Singapore, seeking to recover funds from the cleanup.
The Justice Department alleged that the electrical and mechanical
systems on the ship, MV
Dali, were improperly maintained, causing it to lose power
and veer off course before striking a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge
in March. The ship was leaving Baltimore
for Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss.
Six men on a road crew, who were filling potholes during an overnight
shift, fell to their deaths. Cleanup crews worked around the clock searching
for bodies and removing thousands of tons of mangled steel and smashed concrete
from the bottom of the Patapsco River. MV Dali remained stuck amid the wreckage
for almost two months, with collapsed steel trusses draped across the ship’s
damaged bow.
“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,” Principal Deputy
Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement.
The collapse
snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore and put many
local longshoremen out of work before the channel was fully opened in
June. It interrupted East Coast shipping routes as the port is one of the
busiest in the country, especially for cars and farm equipment.
FBI agents boarded the ship in April amid a criminal investigation into
the circumstances leading up to the collapse. When it was filed last month, the Justice Department civil claim
provided the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures that
left the Dali’s pilots and crew helpless in the face of looming disaster.
The complaint pointed to “excessive vibrations” on the ship that attorneys
called a “well-known cause of transformer and electrical failure.” Instead of
dealing with the source of the excessive vibrations, crew members “jury-rigged”
the ship, the complaint alleged.
It also noted
cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo shaken loose. The
ship’s electrical equipment was in such bad condition that an independent
agency stopped further electrical testing because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.