The US Department of Justice fined two shipping companies, incorporated in Liberia, for failing to notify the USCG of a hazardous condition on one of their vessels and to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) by presenting false documents to the Coast Guard that covered up vessel oil pollution.
Defendants Nederland Shipping Company and Chartworld Shipping Company are the owner and operator of the 13,049 gross ton, ocean-going, refrigerated cargo/container vessel called the M/V NEDERLAND REEFER.
The vessels of this type – meaning large ships – produce oil-contaminated bilge waste when water mixes in the bottom or bilges of the ship with oil that has leaked from the ship’s engines and other areas. Thus, this waste has to be processed, so that the water is separated from the oil, by using pollution prevention equipment, including an Oily Water Separator (OWS), before being discharged into the sea.
APPS requires that the disposal of the ship’s bilge waste be recorded in the ship’s Oil Record Book (ORB).
On February 21, 2019, the USCG conducted a Port State Control Examination of the M/V NEDERLAND REEFER. During the inspection, the USCG understood that the vessel’s Chief Engineer was repeatedly tricking the oil content monitoring device on the vessel’s OWS with fresh water thereby discharging untreated oily bilge water overboard at sea. The Chief Engineer then falsified the vessel’s ORB to conceal these illegal discharges from the Coast Guard.
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On October 2, 2019, the Chief Engineer plead guilty and also admitted that he proceeded to various actions to obstruct the Coast Guard’s investigation, including destruction of evidence and witness tampering.
Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and David C. Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware announced the plea agreement, which includes a $1.8 million dollar criminal penalty.
In addition, the Coast Guard’s investigation revealed that on December 30, 2018, seawater began entering the vessel below the waterline through a hole in the vessel’s Bilge Holding Tank. This compromise of the hull’s integrity and the temporary repairs, constituted a hazardous condition that Defendants failed to report to the Coast Guard.
The plea agreement sets that the company will be on a four-year term probation, including a comprehensive environmental compliance plan to ensure, among other things, that ships operated by Chartworld entering the United States fully comply with all applicable national and international marine environmental protection laws.
