WASHINGTON– The owner and manager of the cargo ship behind the fatal accident Baltimore Bridge Collapse have agreed to pay more than $102 million in cleanup costs to settle a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, officials announced Thursday.

The settlement does not cover damages related to the bridge’s reconstruction, officials said in a statement announcing the agreement. This construction project could cost nearly $2 billion. The State of Maryland filed its own claim seeking, among other things, these damages.

The settlement comes a month after the Justice Department sued ship owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and its director Synergy Marine Group, both based in Singapore, seeking to recoup funds from the cleanup.

The Justice Department alleged that the electrical and mechanical systems of the ship, the Dali, were poorly maintainedcausing it to lose power and veer off course before hitting a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. The ship was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka when its steering failed due to a loss of power.

Six men from a road crew, who filled potholes during a night shift, died. Cleanup crews worked around the clock searching for bodies and removing thousands of tons of mangled steel and broken concrete from the bottom of the Patapsco River. The Dali remained stuck amid the wreckage for nearly two months, with collapsed steel trusses draped over the ship’s damaged bow.

“This resolution ensures that the costs of the federal government’s cleanup efforts in the Fort McHenry Canal are borne by Grace Ocean and Synergy and not by the American taxpayer,” Principal Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement.

The collapse disrupted commercial shipping through the Port of Baltimore and put many local longshoremen out of work before the canal. was fully opened in June. That disrupted East Coast shipping routes because the port is one of the busiest in the country, especially for cars and farm equipment.

Grace Ocean and Synergy filed a court petition just days after the collapse, seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the costliest maritime accident case in history.

Court records show that lawyers for both sides said in a joint filing Thursday that they had reached a settlement agreement and requested dismissal of the Justice Department’s claim, which sought $103 million in legal fees. cleaning.

The claim is one of several filed as part of a broad liability case that will ultimately determine how much the ship’s owner and manager will owe for their role in the disaster. The other claims remain unresolved. Complaints have been filed on behalf of the victims’ families, businesses whose operations suffered from the collapse, municipal entities, etc.

FBI agents boarded the ship in April as part of a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading to the collapse.

When filed last month, the Justice Department’s civil complaint provided the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures that left the Dali’s pilots and crew helpless against to the impending catastrophe. The complaint alleged “excessive vibrations” on the ship, which lawyers called “a well-known cause of transformer failure and electrical failure.” Instead of addressing the source of the excessive vibrations, crew members “rigged” the vessel, according to the complaint.

He also noted cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo breaking away. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such poor condition that an independent agency stopped further electrical testing for safety reasons, according to the lawsuit.