More than a decade after an oil spill blanketed the Mississippi River at New Orleans with a thick, tar-like sludge, the barge company responsible for the mishap has agreed to pay $2.1 million in damages and to buy and preserve 649 acres of wildlife habitat in upper Plaquemines Parish.
The settlement, announced Monday by the U.S. Justice Department, caps litigation stemming from a 2008 collision caused by a tugboat pulling a barge loaded with thousands of barrels of No. 6 fuel oil.
The collision split the barge in two and spilled about 282,828 gallons of fuel oil, spoiling more than 100 miles of river from New Orleans to the Heads of Passes.
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