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12.22.99 06:57:14
4 years after spill,
110 lobstermen split
$10-million award
 Individual lobstermen will receive varying amounts, depending on the damages they suffered from the North Cape oil spill off Matunuck.
By PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- With calm seas offshore, John Sorlien made it clear he would have preferred being out on Block Island Sound pulling his lobster pots, rather than hanging around a courthouse with a crowd of lawyers. But he didn't complain too loudly, because yesterday was a big pay day for Rhode Island lobstermen.
In a matter of minutes, Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres approved a settlement ending nearly four years of negotiations between members of the Rhode Island Lobstermen's Association and Eklof Marine Corp., the company held responsible for the North Cape oil spill.
The settlement, reached between the two sides two weeks ago, awards $10 million to 110 lobstermen who saw their fishing grounds closed for months after the spill and still expect to see lobster catches remain lower than usual for at least another few years.
The figure comes to an average of a little more than $90,000 for each fisherman. The association and its lawyers declined to say how much will go toward legal fees, and the award for each lobsterman will vary depending on the amount of damages each could show.
``I'd say the awards range from slightly less than $10,000 to more than $100,000,'' said Alan P. Gelfuso, legal counsel to the lobstermen's association.
Sorlien and Robert Smith, who was president of the association when the spill occurred on Jan. 19, 1996, stressed yesterday at a news conference outside the federal courthouse that this settlement was not a windfall for the lobstermen. It represented an effort to make up for what they lost.
But they also were pleased that each lobsterman received far more than what Eklof's agents were offering as settlements as soon as the day after the spill.
``On the day after the spill, they rode into town on white horses and said, `We're here to help you and make you whole,' '' Sorlien said. ``To our credit, we realized this wouldn't be quickly resolved.''
He said some fishermen signed releases in the early days following the spill in exchange for a few thousand dollars, not realizing the forms prohibited them from filing any further claims.
``They were offering pennies on the dollar,'' Sorlien said. ``We agreed this was not a process where individuals could do well on their own.''
Gelfuso said he looked for another lawyer who was an expert in such maritime claims and was happy to find Thomas F. Holt Jr., of the Boston law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart.
Holt said much of the settlement boiled down to an argument over how many lobsters were actually killed in the spill of 828,000 gallons of home heating oil off Matunuck.
Eklof hired Stanley Cobb, a URI professor, to prepare one estimate. Holt said he hired a scientist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Judith MacDowell-Cappuzzo, to prepare another estimate that concluded the damages were even worse than those found by Cobb.
``I'm not sure there were any real winners or losers here,'' Holt said. He said the state has handled its criminal enforcement case against Eklof (resulting in record fines), and it has spent years determining what it will take to restore the environmental losses.
``Now we are finally focusing on the lobstermen who bore the brunt of the economic damages,'' Holt said.
``I'm not sure the settlement wil make all the parties whole,'' he said. ``But at least they can pay their mortgages.''
Gelfuso said the lobstermen probably wouldn't get their checks in time for Christmas, but certainly they'll receive their money in a few weeks.
He added that more work remains to be done to improve laws concerning oil spills. It shouldn't take four years to compensate those most affected, he said.
The lobstermen had no input to the criminal case, which resulted in huge fines and a big contribution to The Nature Conservancy, he said. And they played no role in the long process of determining the damage to the environment caused by the spill. (Governor Almond is scheduled to make a major announcement about those negotiations today.)
``These people [the lobstermen] were on the front lines and lost the most,'' said Gelfuso. ``But they were pushed to last.''
Apparently, no one is proposing to change the way oil-spill damages are resolved, according to Stephen G. Morin, chief of the Department of Environmental Management's oil response team.
The lobstermen's losses and the natural resources damages are related, but they are two different issues, Morin said.
``There are two tracks,'' Morin said. ``One is the economic loss suffered by the lobstermen. The other is the natural resource damages, which includes noncommercial species, such as worms. They are in the food chain and are of value to people in the country. If lobstermen took part in those negotiations, they might bend the restoration toward the commercial sphere. But if we do our job right and restore the resources, then the lobstermen would get the benefit of that in the end anyways.''
Smith stressed yesterday that none of the lobstermen are getting a special deal from the settlement.
``These men deserved it,'' he said.
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