Fishers, crabbers and other seafaring businesses, including airboat tour guides, have filed suit in federal court against the owner of the Golden Ray and the salvage company that dismantled the ship, claiming the environmental damage from the capsizing and salvage has wrecked their livelihoods.
The Korean car carrier capsized onto its side on Sept. 9, 2019, shortly after departing the Port of Brunswick. All crew members were rescued safely, but salvage experts deemed the ship itself, measuring 656 feet long, was a complete loss.
The 93-page suit, which includes maps and photos of the damage, says tens of thousands of gallons of fuel leaked into St. Simons Sound, as well as an unknown amount of oil. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources has still not begun an environmental assessment.
In addition, during the salvage of the capsized ship, there were several fires. The biggest one broke out on May 14, 2021.
COURT DOCUMENT: Complaint filed in September in federal court against Golden Ray owner & salvage company
It took two years and more than 3 million person-hours to complete the largest removal of the shipwreck. Even after the wreck was considered clear, the impacts lingered, according to the lawsuit by a coalition of seafaring industry workers.
The industries are suing under the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Oil Pollution Act.
They argue that “oil and oil-based pollutants are likely to remain suspended in the water column and embedded in the sediment for the foreseeable future.”
The lawsuit goes on to say the wreck “created a condition that is harmful to the health of the sound, the surrounding rivers and marshlands, estuaries and beaches.”
The Golden Ray was carrying more than 4,200 vehicles and 300,000 gallons of fuel onboard when it capsized. That fuel leaked into the surrounding waterways and land, including the St. Simons Sound, Jekyll and Cumberland islands, and parts of St. Simons and Sea islands, as well as Mackay River and surrounding marshes.
Fletcher Sams, executive director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper conservation group, said one of the most urgent steps that the defendants haven’t taken yet is taking a full toll of the damage done by the wreck.
“I think that the public deserves to know how damaged the estuary is and what, if anything, needs to occur to fix it,” Sams said. “And what I see with these lawsuits is people that rely on the resource or having to take these kinds of measures.”
Crews recovered about 8,000 pounds of ship-related debris from shores and marsh and 9,500 pounds of non-ship-related trash. But the plaintiffs say that the message hasn’t been cleaned up yet and continues to damage the environment and cost these businesses serious revenue because neither fish nor tourists have been seen at the levels they were before the incident.
News4JAX reached out to the companies facing this lawsuit for comment but has not received a response.
It’s the second major environmental-related case brought against the Golden Ray’s operators since the wreck. In March, Glynn County filed a lawsuit in federal court against the owner of the Golden Ray, the company involved in the salvage of the Golden Ray and others, claiming significant damage to the coastal environment and damage to the county’s economy. That suit asked a federal judge to order the defendants to begin immediate cleanup and to reimburse the county for costs it has incurred doing cleanup work.
Thursday marked three years since the vessel, at more than 71,000 tons, flipped over onto its side off the coast of Georgia.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported the combined losses totaled more than $204 million. The agency concluded an officer’s error in calculating the stability of the ship loaded with more than 4,200 automobiles left its center of gravity too high, causing the vessel to capsize.
In October, the final giant chunk of the overturned ship was removed, with Cmdr. Efren Lopez with the U.S. Coast Guard saying, “We have completed the largest wreck removal in U.S. history.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.