Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP

Sacramento River Spill Twenty Years Later

On July 14, 1991, a Southern Pacific train tanker car derailed in northern California, spilling 19,000 gallons of metam sodium, a toxic pesticide that kills nematodes, fungi and weeds, into the Sacramento River near the town of Dunsmir.  

As reported on July 10, 2011, in The Record Searchlgiht  (Redding, California),

"Heavy locomotives and full boxcars were at the end of the 97-car Southern Pacific train, but light, empty cars flanked the tanker car. It was a configuration destined for disaster. Like a shoestring yanked at both ends, the train snapped into a straight line as it traversed the treacherous Cantara Loop bridge, catapulting the toxic tanker car into the pristine waters of the Sacramento River."

Within a week, every fish, 1.1 million in total, crayfish, insect and all other aquatic life in a 45-mile stretch of the river from Cantara Loop to Lake Shasta was killed.  The spill was the worst inland ecological disaster in California.  State biologists let the river mostly heal itself, waiting four years until resuming trout stocking programs.  Today, the ecosystem of the river has been fully restored. 

Along with the ecological devastation wrought by the chemical spill, Cantara caused lasting health problems for the railroad workers, others who helped to clean the spill, and Sacramento River Canyon residents.

The Record summarized the litigation:

Three years after the spill the state, Southern Pacific and other companies involved with the tanker car agreed to a $38 million settlement. In the settlement, Southern Pacific paid $30 million; GATX, the tanker's owner, $5 million; AMVAC, the chemical's maker, $2 million; and J.M. Huber, which leased the tanker, $1 million. While part of the settlement covered claims by the railroad workers and other first responders to the spill, residents in affected river towns filed separate lawsuits. In all there were about 1,500 personal injury claims, said Don Arbitblit, an attorney the Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein law office in San Francisco. He said adults were paid $1,000 to $100,000 each about three years after the spill. "The overall payment varied on the severity of the injury," Arbitblit said.

A toxic cloud of gas rose up from the tainted river after the spill, he said, causing nose, throat and eye ailments. In February 2010 another wave of money came to the children of the first responders as a piece of the settlement locked away until the youngest reached age 18, Arbitblit said. The 767 beneficiaries of the Minors' Medical Benefits Trust Fund divided $1 million, with each receiving a check for $1,300. Those payments were likely the last of Cantara's legacy, Arbitblit said.

Following the spill, Union Pacific, which acquired Southern Pacific in 1996, spent more than $10 million in improvements along the tracks, including constructing a massive guardrail to stop a train from falling into the river.

Lieff Cabraser served as Court-appointed Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel, Lead Class Counsel, and chaired the Plaintiffs' Litigation Committee in coordinated proceedings that included all of the lawsuits arising out of this toxic spill.