Shipyards [Part 1]

Supreme Court Rejects Southwest Marine Appeal
Baykeeper/NRDC Prevail On Long-Standing Litigation

On June 11, 2003, the on-going litigation brought by San Diego Baykeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council ('NRDC') against Southwest Marine reached its conclusion when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the shipyard's final appeal. Southwest Marine had challenged the September 1999 U.S. District Court ruling, later upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit, which required the shipyard to improve their stormwater pollution prevention practices and found the company liable for $799,000 due to recurring permit violations.

“This essentially brings the case to end,” stated Baykeeper's Executive Director Bruce Reznik. “After more than five years of negotiations and litigation, we are ecstatic to have finally prevailed. We will now turn our attention to monitoring Southwest Marine's compliance with the judgment to ensure our Bay is protected.”

Southwest Marine, the Navy's largest ship repair and maintenance facility on the West Coast, had failed to implement required measures to prevent toxins from flowing into San Diego Bay. In his initial ruling, Judge Brewster blamed “a pattern of poor housekeeping” for causing the leasehold around the shipyard to be “devoid of life”. As recently as June 13, 2003, the shipyard was fined by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board for violations of their discharge permit.

With the case at an end, Southwest Marine was also ordered to reimburse the costs and fees incurred by Baykeeper, NRDC and the groups' attorneys in bringing the suit. “Baykeeper is reinvesting our recovery into the organization's Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. This will allow us to increase our voice on water quality issues and make Baykeeper an even more powerful deterrent to environmental crimes in San Diego.”

Baykeeper and NRDC owe a tremendous debt to the all the people involved in bringing this action, including the many attorneys and experts who worked tirelessly on the case for five years or more. Special recognition goes to John Barth, Steve Crandall, Everett DeLano, Ken Moser, Scott Peters and Joel Reynolds.

Baykeeper continues to work closely with the Environmental Health Coalition, the Surfrider Foundation and the local Sierra Club and Audubon Society chapters to ensure that the Regional Water Board imposes strict sediment clean-up levels on Southwest Marine and National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. The Board is considering various potential clean-up levels for the areas surrounding the two facilities, with Baykeeper and others demanding full clean-up of all the sediment contamination caused by the shipyards' years of neglect.