[StBernard] First Law Suits Filed Against Murphy Oil

[Westley Annis]

 From the Baton Rouge Advocate

St. Bernard residents sue in oil spill


*By MIKE DUNNE*

Advocate staff writer

Residents of St. Bernard Parish have filed two class-action lawsuits 
against Murphy Oil seeking unspecified damages for a massive oil spill 
at the company's refinery in Meraux during Hurricane Katrina.

In a related development, a U.S. Coast Guard official overseeing oil 
recovery efforts said Friday that the leak in is "well-contained" and 
cleanup is beginning.

The federal lawsuits, filed Sept. 9 and Monday in Lafayette, accuse the 
El Dorado, Ark.-based company and its Murphy Oil USA Inc. unit of 
negligence when Katrina hit Aug. 29 and knocked out the plant.

"As a direct and proximate cause of the negligence of the defendant, 
plaintiffs sustained damages that include contamination of property, 
mental anguish, emotional distress, inconvenience, loss of use, loss of 
property value, loss of income, loss of profits, loss of business 
opportunity and fear of cancer," states a lawsuit filed by property 
owner Patrick Joseph Turner on behalf of at least 500 property owners in 
St. Bernard Parish.

A second lawsuit filed by residents John and Theonise Maus, Judith Maus, 
Charles August Maus, Marcel Wieners, Carla Valaske and at least 5,000 
other parish residents states that among the issues to be considered is 
whether "Murphy's negligence is ultimately found to prolong the time in 
which members cannot return to their property and whether the class 
members' property is permanently damaged so that their property's 
fair-market value is diminished."

The court will decide whether the lawsuits can proceed as class-action 
complaints.

In a related development, the spill at the Murphy refinery affected 
about 1,000 homes near it, Coast Guard Capt. Frank Paskewich said.

Air monitoring is being conducted, Paskewich said, and "there is no 
hazard to personnel" although there are some "hot spots" that are being 
worked by "professionals."

Officials estimate that about 20,000 barrels of oil may have leaked from 
a storage tank where the containment berm designed to keep spilled oil 
broke and allowed the oil to go out into the community.

Paskewich said the agency has contained oil in area canals and is 
working to recover the crude that washed off the plant site and into 
surrounding neighborhoods.

"We cleaned up the streets as best we could," he said.

Paskewich said he had no information on the long-term remediation of 
those affected St. Bernard homes.

The Murphy spill is the biggest of the 47 "open cases" being worked in 
southeast Louisiana. Paskewich described six of those spills as 
"significant."

The agency estimates that 160,000 barrels, with 42 gallons in each 
barrel, spilled as a result of Katrina flooding or collapsing oil 
facilities, Paskewich said.

That's enough oil to fill about 78 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or 
about 62 percent of the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in 1989. The 
Murphy discharge itself would account for about nine of those 
Olympic-sized pools.

So far, across the region, about 50,000 barrels have been recovered or 
contained, Paskewich said. The rest, he said, was disbursed by Katrina's 
winds and waves.

Most of the spilled oil other than at Murphy is contained inside spill 
containment berms built around storage tanks or within containment booms 
that float on water andkeep oil from spreading, Paskewich said.

Packing 145 mph winds, Katrina washed ashore in Barataria Bay, crossed 
Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, skirting just east of New Orleans 
and slamming into the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Paskewich said the storm surge from the hurricane collapsed some tanks 
and broke pipes and pipelines.

More than 500 contractors have deployed about 30,000 feet of oil 
containment boom, and 10 skimmers are picking up contained oil.

"All of the sources (of oil) are secure," and final recovery will take 
weeks, Paskewich said.

Meanwhile, Murphy said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings 
that it believes insurance will cover the release of oil and doesn't 
expect to incur significant costs associated with the lawsuits. The 
company also does not believe the lawsuits will have a material adverse 
effect on its net income, financial condition or liquidity.

The Associated Presscontributed to this report

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