Fleet Management Ltd. Pleads Guilty
By Benjamin Blascoe
There aren’t many things on this planet that are more devastating to the environment and its natural resources than an oil spill. If we think back through all the varying spills in the headlines over the past 20 years, none of them have ever amounted to anything worthwhile or revolutionary. And the same goes for Fleet Management Ltd.’s spill in the San Francisco Bay in 2007.
The Hong-Kong based company pleaded guilty last Thursday (August 13, 2009) to criminal charges for the devastating damage to the Bay Area. Taken from BreakingLegalNews.com, “The Cosco Busan sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a foggy morning on Nov. 7, 2007. The ship spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into the water, killing thousands of birds and other wildlife and fouling miles of shoreline.”
The result will be 10 million USD – pending a federal court judge’s approval. But even though that is a staggering number, it still isn’t enough for some. The damage that the 2007 spill caused will not be amended for some time and that angers many in the Bay Area.
The pilot of the ship was sentenced to 10 months in prison. However, there is still a lot of debate around the issue of whether or not he is even to blame. Many say that the controller of the port never should have let him go through such a dense fog. Be that as it may, the ship is still at fault and finally some justice will be brought to this grim situation.
