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$969,000 goes to scarred Keys sanctuary©Associated PressDecember 21, 2002 MIAMI -- The nation's largest dredge company has agreed to pay a record $969,000 to help restore coral and seagrass damaged when a tugboat ran aground in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary nearly 10 years ago. Money from the settlement announced Friday will cover reef repairs and help reimburse government agencies for their response to the Florida Bay grounding. "This helps add to our authority to collect damages in these cases, so it will definitely help us in obtaining settlements in the future," said Cheva Heck, spokeswoman for the sanctuary protecting the longest barrier reef after Australia and Belize. The Justice Department said in a release it was the largest settlement ever negotiated for a grounding in the sanctuary. A judge initially ordered Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. to pay $368,797. Both the company and the government appealed in a test of Commerce Department powers under the 1972 National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The appeals court voided the original amount and sided with the federal agency, opening up Great Lakes to a potentially larger bill if the case were retried. The sanctuary plans to combine the money from Oak Brook, Ill.-based Great Lakes with a $618,485 settlement reached with Coastal Marine Towing, a tug company involved in the grounding in May 1993. It will spend more than $1-million at the grounding site and $405,000 at other damage sites in the 2,800-square-mile sanctuary. The balance will cover the initial response and damage assessment work. Great Lakes hired Coastal Marine Towing to carry 500-foot pipes around the tip of Florida. One of the pipes came loose and left a 13-mile scar on the bottom of the bay separating the Florida peninsula and the Keys. The tug hauling the errant pipe was slowed by the drag. A second of four tugs traveling together tried to pass but ran hard aground, damaging nearly 2 acres of coral and grass.
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