New Carissa settlement totals $4 million to aid restoration.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

COOS BAY - Oregon wildlife and recreation will get at least a $4 million boost in an effort to recoup losses from the 1999 shipwreck of the New Carissa, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced Tuesday.

The agency released its final restoration plan, describing how a $4 million settlement with the ship's owners will be spent. The plan seeks to recoup losses to natural resources stemming from the oil spilled after the 660-foot cargo ship went aground north of Coos Bay on Feb. 4, 1999. The ship broke in half and leaked between 25,000 and 140,000 gallons of oil.

That spill caused the deaths of hundreds of birds, say federal officials, including 262 marbled murrelets and as many as eight Western snowy plovers, both of which are federally listed threatened species. Thousands more seabirds, gulls and other shorebirds were also killed, and 29,000 recreation trips to the coast were "lost or diminished" as a result.

The plan calls for spending the money from lawsuit settlements on land purchases for new habitat, predator management and improvements to recreation site projects on the coast.

Last year, officials released a draft of the plan and asked for comment, which they got from county commissioners and citizens in Lincoln and Tillamook counties, worried that purchasing land and turning it over to federal agencies for management would eat away at local tax revenues. In response, the current plan promises only to transfer such properties to tribes or conservation groups that agree to pay property taxes. Other changes between the previously released draft and the final plan were minor.

Winston Ross can be reached at [e-mail].