The Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping (DSD) was sentenced to pay a total corporate penalty of $2.5 million as a result of its convictions in Mobile, Alabama, for obstructing justice, violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), tampering with witnesses and conspiring to commit these offenses.
The company was ordered to pay $500,000 of the penalty to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation to fund marine research and enhance coastal habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay.
In addition, DSD was placed on a three year term of probation and was ordered to implement an environmental compliance plan to ensure the company’s vessels obeyed domestic and international environmental regulations in the future. The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown for the Southern District of Alabama.
The operation of commercial marine vessels generates large quantities of waste oil, oil-contaminated waste water and garbage. International and U.S. law forbid the discharge of waste oil and garbage into the ocean and require that these vessels use pollution prevention equipment, known as an oily-water separator, to prevent the discharge of oil-contaminated waste water. Should any overboard discharges occur, they must be documented in either an oil record book or a garbage record book, logs that are regularly inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The evidence demonstrated at trial that DSD operated the M/T Stavanger Blossom, a 56,000 gross ton crude oil tanker, from 2010 to 2014 without an operable oily-water separator as required by law. On Jan. 29, 2010, an internal corporate memorandum written by a vessel engineer warned DSD that the pollution prevention equipment did not work. The memo further warned that if the problem was not addressed, “some day, it might end up that someone is getting caught for polluting.” However, rather than repair or replace the oily-water separator, DSD operated the vessel illegally for the next 57 months before the conduct was identified by U.S. Coast Guard inspectors in November 2014. As the testimony at trial revealed, DSD illegally discharged approximately 20,000 gallons of oil-contaminated waste water and plastic bags containing 270 gallons of sludge into the ocean during the last two-and-a-half months of the vessel’s operation.
The evidence also established that DSD lied about these activities by maintaining fictitious record books aboard the vessel. These records omitted the illegal discharges of oil and garbage and falsely claimed that pollution prevention equipment was used when it was not. Further, when the U.S. Coast Guard examined the ship, DSD’s senior ship officers lied about the discharges and ordered their subordinates to do the same.
In court documents filed prior to sentencing, prosecutors informed the court that despite convictions for eight felony offenses, DSD continued to deny wrongdoing in Norwegian press accounts. Prosecutors also noted that previous deficiencies in the operation of pollution prevention equipment had been identified in other DSD vessels while they were in international ports.
Three senior engineering officers employed by DSD to operate the ship were also sentenced. Defendant Bo Gao, chief engineer of the vessel, and Xiaobing Chen, second engineer of the vessel, were both sentenced to six months imprisonment as a result of their conduct. Defendant Xin Zhong, fourth engineer of the vessel, was sentenced to two months imprisonment. All three also face the loss of their marine engineering license and exclusion from employment in the merchant marine. A fourth DSD employee, Daniel Paul Dancu, pleaded guilty in October 2015, and will be sentenced on April 11, 2016.
“We will continue to aggressively prosecute and hold accountable those shipping companies who flout the laws that protect our oceans and coastal waterways from harmful vessel pollution and waste,” said Assistant Attorney General Cruden. “It is fitting that a portion of this penalty will go towards repairing and protecting the Gulf coastal environment that is threatened by these illegal discharges. This egregious abuse of the seas we share as a nation and an international community must stop.”
“We are very pleased with the fines and custody sentences imposed by the court in the case today,” announced U.S. Attorney Brown. “The fine and probation imposed against DSD, and the custody sentence imposed on the engineering officers reflect the seriousness of the offenses committed against the United States and the environment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to investigate and prosecute environmental crimes. It is incumbent upon all individuals and corporations to protect our environment and the resources along the Northern Gulf of Mexico.”
“The Coast Guard will not tolerate the pollution of our marine environment,” said Rear Admiral Dave Callahan for the Eighth Coast Guard District Commander. “The individuals committing environmental crimes are putting our natural resources at risk and they must be held accountable. I am thankful for the hard work and dedication that Coast Guard Sector Mobile, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Department of Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency have put into the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
“The Coast Guard Investigative Service is deeply committed to protecting our nation’s waters and ensuring that those within the commercial shipping industry are good stewards of the marine environment,” said Director Michael Berkow for the Coast Guard Investigative Service. “Sadly, although entirely preventable, pollution from vessels remains all too common. We hope the sentences in this case deter others from committing similar conduct. We are grateful to our investigative partners for their assistance in the prosecution of this case.”
“When a company fails to comply with our nation’s environmental laws, it can have a devastating effect on both public health and wildlife,” said Special Agent in Charge Andy Castro of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Alabama. “The defendants knowingly discharged oily waste from a vessel into the open water and then tried to cover up their crimes by falsifying entries in the vessel’s log books. This successful prosecution is another example of the effective partnership between the Department of Justice, the Coast Guard and EPA to protect the environment and our natural resources.”
This case was investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Mobile, U.S. Coast Guard District Eight, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, and the EPA’s Criminal Investigations Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. Anderson, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama, and Trial Attorney Shane N. Waller, with the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section, prosecuted the case.
