Record fine is expected in oil spill

The owners of a barge that leaked tens of thousands of gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay last spring are expected to pay a $10 million fine, the largest environmental penalty in Massachusetts history, according to sources close to the federal investigation.

Bouchard Transportation agreed Thursday to pay the fine for the April 27 accident, which contaminated more than 90 miles of coastline in the biggest oil spill in Buzzards Bay since 1969, the sources said.

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan is expected to announce details of the settlement Monday, they said. A spokesman for Sullivan declined to comment. Officials at other federal and state agencies involved in the investigation also declined to comment. A Bouchard official confirmed only that a press conference was set for early next week.

Federal authorities began an 11-month criminal investigation of the spill after allegations that the captain and first mate of the tugboat pulling the barge were absent from the bridge when it struck a submerged rock and began leaking. The company also dramatically underestimated the spill's size, which the company now estimates at up to 55,000 gallons.

"After the lies and deceit of this company, one only hopes for a conclusion with very serious criminal and civil penalties," said state Senator Mark C. Montigny, who represents communities harmed by the spill. "It's the only way you get strong enough laws in the future." He has not seen the settlement.

It's unclear exactly who will get the $10 million fine or whether it is a civil or criminal penalty. The money is not likely to go toward restoration, because Bouchard has already accepted responsibility for cleanup and paid more than $38 million in direct costs for the effort. That figure is expected to rise greatly as scientists conduct research into long-term damage costs to wildlife.

Several state and federal officials contacted last night said they believed the largest previous environmental fine imposed in New England was the $9.5 million paid by Eklof Marine in 1997 for an 828,000-gallon spill in 1996 off Point Judith, R.I.

While other oil spills have done more environmental damage -- such as the Eklof spill, which killed millions of lobsters -- few cleanups have been plagued with the problems of the Bouchard Barge 120 accident.

"This is probably one of the most expensive spills for cleaning up, because it was such a dense, viscous oil and you had such a conspicuous wildlife population" that was harmed, said Joe Costa, director of the Buzzards Bay Project National Estuary Program.

The oil spill's final price tag could be close to $100 million, once all the damage assessments are done, spill analysts say. Even today, some 11 months after the accident, shellfish beds in Dartmouth, Mattapoisett, and Fairhaven remained closed. The direct cost of hiring cleanup crews reached $38 million by last July, Costa said, and the Standard-Times of New Bedford reported yesterday that Bouchard's insurers have paid an additional $31 million to settle property damage claims so far.

Scientists will also be calculating the harm to birds, fish, and other marine life over the next two years, probably adding millions more to the cost.

Adding to the public outcry over the accident was the conduct of Bouchard employees in an accident that occurred on a clear evening in a rocky area, possibly outside the shipping lane. The crew of another boat initially noticed the sheen trailing behind the Bouchard barge as it chugged through the Cape Cod Canal. The leak was soon plugged, and company officials said 14,700 gallons of oil had been spilled.

Within weeks, however, experienced cleanup crews and observers were expressing amazement at the amount of oil they were finding on beaches and in the water. After pressure from the Coast Guard, Bouchard revised its estimates to almost 100,000 gallons.

They then revised the number again to about 55,000 gallons, but some environmental officials still question the spill's amount. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard failed to test the captain and first mate of the tug pulling the barge for alcohol use in a timely fashion and failed to disclose that time delay to the public. A Coast Guard audio tape indicated that it took the agency more than three minutes to rouse anyone on the tugboat once the federal authorities got word of a possible spill. It remains unclear exactly what the captain and first mate were doing or exactly where the accident took place.

The spill has galvanized local and state officials to ensure that such an accident doesn't happen again. Within weeks of the spill, the state Senate passed a bill that dramatically increased the penalty for oil spills, including fines that could top $500,000 and prison terms of up to 20 years.

The Environmental Endangerment Act, which took effect last summer, is not retroactive, so it would not apply to the Bouchard spill.

Scott Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com.