On July 12, the US District Court Judge Helen Gillmor sentenced Hai Soon Ship Management, a Singaporean shipping company, to pay a fine of $1 million and serve a two-year term of probation for not maintaining an accurate oil record book. This breaches the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), and false statements concerning the illegal dumping of oil contaminated bilge water at sea.
The company pled guilty to the charges, and now its vessels operating in the US will have to comply with an environmental compliance plan that includes regular inspections under the supervision of an independent auditor. The compliance plan will be implemented by an independent auditing company and supervised by a court-appointed monitor.
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According to the court, the company operates the 3,878 gross ton oil tank vessel ‘Hai Soon 39’. The Hai Soon 39 provided refueling services to fishing vessels operating at sea. International and US law require that vessels like the Hai Soon 39 must use pollution prevention equipment to prevent the discharge of oil-contaminated bilge into the sea.
Ig any overboard discharges happen, they must be recorded in an oil record book. In October of 2017, the Chief Engineer of the Hai Soon 39, along with other engine room staff, built a hose in the engine room to bypass the ship’s pollution prevention equipment, including its oil water separator, and pump oily waste directly overboard.
The discharges were never recorded in the ship’s oil record book and the Chief Engineer made false entries in the oil record book to make it appear that the discharges had been routed through the oil water separator.
