According to a news release from the US Department of Justice, a ship management company operating a 21,145GT cargo ship that regularly transported cargo between foreign ports and the US, has pleaded guilty and was sentenced in federal court for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and for making material false statements.
As a result, the company was sentenced to pay a US$850,000 penalty, of which US$150,000 will be paid to the National Fish and Wildlife Fund as a community service payment, and to serve five years of probation, during which time it will implement an environmental compliance plan.
Federal and international law requires that all ships comply with pollution regulations requiring the proper disposal of oily waste water and sludge by passing the oily waste through an oil-water separator (OWS) aboard the vessel or burning the sludge in the ship's incinerator. Federal law also requires the ship's crew to record accurately in an oil record book (ORB) each transfer or disposal of oily wastewater and sludge.
According to the news release, the violations were notified to the US Coast Guard (USCG) by an oiler with the engine crew passing a note to the USCG inspector during a regular inspection of the ship. The subsequent investigation revealed that from September 2009, through March 2010, engine department crew members pumped oil-contaminated waste directly overboard by using the pipe that bypassed the OWS on several occasions, up to ten times according to some crew members. In March 2010, the chief engineer ordered the engine department crewmembers, through the second engineer, to bypass the OWS and discharge oil-contaminated bilge waste directly overboard. This resulted in approximately 50,000 litres of oil-contaminated waste to be discharged into the ocean.
Source: Bimco
