Failure to finalize Bohai Bay oil spill compensation angers locals

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-08-09

A lawsuit has been filed against China's State Oceanic Administration on August 2 by lawyers representing fishermen and fishing firms hurt by the 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill, the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reports.

Bohai Bay in northeastern China is an area of the Yellow Sea partially enclosed between the Liaoning and Shandong peninsulas. The 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill was a series of oil spills that began on June 4, 2011. The spill itself however was not publicly disclosed until a month later, which fueled rumors of an official cover-up by the SOA.

Beijing DHH Law Firm attorney Wang Haijun and a Shandong attorney Xu Hongliang jointly represented Dongying villagers and two fishing firms to file an administrative lawsuit against the SOA at the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court. They claim that the SOA violated laws after its handling of the compensation offered by the US-based oil giant ConocoPhillips for the Bohai ecological damage.

In April last year, ConocoPhillips and its partner China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) agreed to pay 1.7 billion yuan (US$277.6 million) in compensation for the series of oil spills off Bohai Bay on the coast of northern China in 2011, the SOA said at that time.

The Beijing court accepted the recent filing, but whether it would accept the case remains unknown. After filing the lawsuit, Xu said officials at the Dongying fisheries service, informed by the SOA, have immediately tried to persuade the plaintiffs to withdraw the case. SOA has yet to release an official response to the accusation, the paper said.

On February 16, the SOA announced that ConocoPhillips will gradually resume its production in the Penglai 19-3 oilfield in Bohai Bay, which had been sealed in late 2011 after the oil leaks polluted 6,200 square kilometer of water, killing off marine life in the area.

As the SOA has yet to finalize and receive the compensation, its choice to allow ConocoPhillips to continue production has triggered public anger, resulting in the lawsuit filed last week.

Lawyers claim that the SOA did not follow the law and failed to conduct any style of public hearing or win the support of related experts before making the decision. Several environmental protection organizations have repeatedly filed requests to ask the SOA to conduct public hearings or fully disclose related information, but the SOA has mostly ignored the requests or said it needs to seek a third-party, the 21st Century Business Herald said.

We have requested the SOA to unveil oil fingerprinting tests for the oil spills, vital evidence in the case, but the administration has yet to comply, said Xu.