The State of Maryland in USA has requested Evergreen to pay $100mn as “Responsibility fund” in order to rectify the damage caused by the grounding of Evergreen’s box vessel, the EVER FORWARD.
The refloating of the grounded vessel was not uneventful. It took more than a month and there were multiple unsuccessful attempts. The vessel was floated only after extensive dredging in the Chesapeake Bay and the offloading of 550 containers to make the vessel more buoyant.
Maryland Comptroller, Peter Franchot has written to the president of Evergreen Shipping Agency (America) Corp. stating that even though there was much that remained unknown about the circumstances surrounding how the vessel ran aground, the situation has already caused damage to the environment and may lead to more damage in the future. He further stated that a 131,420-ton ship getting stuck and the dredging that was required to free it would cause damage to the oyster beds. It would also cause disruptions in the spawning cycle for several species that are invaluable to the seafood industry, which will lead to economic hardships in the region.
Franchot, in the letter, clarifies that the fund will be used to compensate the workers engaged in the seafood industry, should they be impacted. It will also be used to pay for the labor of federal, state, and local agencies’ employees that contributed to the refloating of the vessel.
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