Two oceanic infrastructure companies agreed to pay over $9.1 million to settle the federal government's civil claims against them under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The government alleged that the companies destroyed habitat in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in California. The claims arose from defendants’ transport of a drydock that sank to the sea floor of the sanctuary forty miles southwest of San Francisco during the process of towing it from Seattle to Mexico in 2016. The large steel structure remains there to this day. The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the National Marine Fisheries Service, is accepting public comments on the proposed consent decree through November 21, 2022.