The US Department of Justice issued a statement reporting of Sea Harvest Inc., operator of “Enterprise” and “Pacific Capes” fishing vessels and the vessels’ owner are sentenced to pay $1 million for discharging oily bilge water from the vessels’ engine rooms.
Specifically, both the owner and the operator of the vessels are said to have violated the “Clean Water Act”, which requires violators to implement a robust environmental compliance plan at their own expense that will cover 36 commercial fishing vessels that are owned or operated by the defendants.
Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division stated that
The laws that govern the discharge of oily bilge waste from vessels have been on the books for decades. The laws that govern the discharge of oily bilge waste from vessels have been on the books for decades.
Based on the court documents, the defendants owned and operated multiple vessels engaged in commercial fishing operations out of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
#Defendants’ past of oil discharges#
From early 2017 to late 2018, the fishing vessels, belonging to the defendants, discharged oil bilge waste from the vessels into the sea, many times.
One incident took place on September 20, 2017, when the New Bedford Massachusetts Police Port Security Unit traced an oil sheen in the Acushnet River to the F/V Enterprise, which was owned and operated by the defendants. When questioned about the sheen, the vessel’s manager confirmed that he had illegally pumped oily bilge water from the Enterprise’s engine room bilge overboard into the Acushnet River.
On November 2016, the USCG issued a Letter of Warning to the vessel for pumping oily bilge waste into the Acushnet River. Following, January 2017, the Coast Guard issued a Captain of the Port Order requiring the vessel to return to port and discharge oily bilge water to a shore side facility. On August 2017, the USCG held a community outreach meeting aimed at informing the commercial fishing community about the problem of discharging oily bilge water into New Bedford Harbor. Defendant’s representatives did not attend this meeting. Less than a month later, the vessel made the illegal discharge that forms the basis of count one.
July 2018, the captain of the F/V Pacific Capes attempted to discharge water from a fish hold into New Bedford Harbor in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. In doing so, the Captain negligently failed to ensure that the valve alignment on the vessel’s bilge manifold was in the proper configuration to prevent the bilge pump from pumping oily bilge water overboard. Oil contamination was discovered alongside the Pacific Capes, as well as approximately 1,000 yards north of the vessel along the beach.
