Anchorage Daily News

The owners of a commercial fishing vessel that ran aground last summer, spilling 3,500 gallons of diesel fuel into Prince William Sound, have agreed to pay $27,500 in penalties under an agreement with the state.

The Nordic Viking, a 130-foot boat used to haul salmon, ran onto rocks on July 21 near Port Gravina, a bay on the eastern side of the Sound.

The grounding happened "due to the reckless conduct of Dale Pruitt," the boat's captain, according to the state settlement with the owners.

The grounding breached the boat's fuel tanks, and the leaking diesel forced state officials to temporarily close some areas to commercial salmon fishing.

Under terms of a "civil compliance order by consent," finalized late last month, the boat owners agreed to certain penalties and other steps in exchange for the state not taking further civil or criminal action:

• The Nordic Viking owners must pay $17,500 into a state oil and hazardous substance prevention and cleanup fund.

• The owners will pay $10,000 to a nonprofit organization, the Gulf of Alaska Keeper, for use in its program to clear beaches of derelict fishing equipment and other marine debris.

• William Jacobson, a Kodiak resident and a partner in the Nordic Viking, must develop and use a drug and alcohol testing program for three other fishing boats in which he holds an ownership interest. All captains hired for the boats will be subject to drug and alcohol testing, the agreement says.

• William Prout of Kodiak, another Nordic Viking partner, must develop the same drug and alcohol testing program for a separate boat he partly owns.

The state attorney who worked out the deal with the Nordic Viking owners couldn't be reached for comment Saturday.

Jacobson and Prout said they were pleased with the settlement.

"We thought the state was very fair and we were happy with where the money went," said Jacobson, referring to the contribution to the Gulf of Alaska Keeper.

Prout called the grounding "just a bad, bad accident."

He spoke by phone Saturday from aboard a tender, a vessel used to haul salmon from commercial fishing boats to processing plants in Prince William Sound ports.

The Nordic Viking was used not only to transport salmon, but to catch crab in the Bering Sea, Prout said.

While the boat didn't sink after it ran aground last year, its engine room flooded and the vessel was declared a "constructive total loss," meaning insurance wouldn't cover the full cost of repairs, Prout said.

So the boat was sold to new owners who converted it in a Seattle shipyard for use as a Bering Sea trawler and gave it a new name, the Epic Explorer, he said.

A leading commercial fishing trade journal, National Fisherman, in May published a feature story on the boat headlined, "Total rebuild."

Neither Jacobson nor Prout would comment on whether the state was seeking any punishment against Pruitt, the man driving the Nordic Viking the day it hit the rocks.

Pruitt was unavailable for comment Saturday. His wife, Mindy, said he was away commercial fishing.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call 257-4590.

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