Freighter’s Owners Sue Coast Guard

The Coast Guard is faced with a $96 million lawsuit in fallout from the February 1999 grounding of the freighter New Carissa in Coos Bay, Ore.

The owners of the freighter claim that navigational charts omitted warnings about unsafe conditions in the waters where the ship went aground in a storm, according to Union-Tribune news services.

The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 16, seeks damages for the cost of the cleanup and salvage operations after about 70,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled into the ocean.

An October 1999 Coast Guard report laid the blame on the ship’s operators, saying the captain dropped only one anchor as a storm was approaching and failed to let out enough anchor chain.