Environment And Natural Resources Division News

Norwegian shipping company Clipper Shipping A.S. has been convicted of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships after admitting that oily bilge water was discharged from the motor tanker Clipper Saturn. As part of the plea, they acknowledged the discharges were omitted from the Oil Record Book. Immediately after the plea entered July 6, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett ordered the company to pay a $1.5 million fine.On Sept. 27 and Oct. 1, 2021, the Clipper Saturn was anchored near Lome, Togo. The chief engineer at the time directed oily bilge water to be transferred into the vessel’s gray water tank and then discharged directly overboard under the cover of darkness.

The U.S. has imposed a $2 million fine on the owner and operator of a bulk carrier that knowingly committed pollution crimes on the Mississippi River. Greek-based Empire Bulkers and related company Joanna Maritime were sentenced Thursday for committing "knowing and willful violations" of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and the Ports and Waterways Safety Act related to their role as the operator and owner of the bulk carrier Joanna.A March 2022 inspection of the…

Vessel operating company New Trade Ship Management S.A. and chief engineer Dennis Plasabas pleaded guilty in San Diego for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oily bilge water from the bulk carrier vessel Longshore.New Trade and Plasabas admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Longshore directly into the ocean without being properly processed through required pollution prevention equipment. Oily bilge water typically contains oil contamination from the operation and cleaning of machinery on the vessel. The defendants also admitted that these illegal discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s oil record book as required by law.

Carnival Corp.'s Princess Cruises has again pleaded guilty to violating its probation imposed as a result of its record $40 million criminal conviction for its "magic pipe" environmental crimes.The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday that Princess failed to establish and maintain an independent internal investigative office as required after pleading guilty to felony dumping and attempted cover-up charges in April 2017. An engineer aboard the Caribbean Princess revealed…

Houston, Texas-based Kirby Inland Marine agreed to pay $15.3 million in damages and assessment costs to resolve federal and state claims for harm to natural resources resulting from a 2014 oil spill from a Kirby barge in the Houston Ship Channel, the U.S. Justice Department said.In a related enforcement action in 2016, the United States secured a settlement with Kirby for $4.9 million in civil penalties and injunctive relief measures to improve the company's operations to help…

Jeffersonville, Ind.-based barging company American Commercial Barge Line (ACBL) has agreed to acquire and preserve 649 acres of woodland wildlife habitat and will pay an additional $2 million for damages stemming from a 2008 oil spill on the Mississippi River, near New Orleans.The company has already paid $1.32 million to reimburse the federal and state trustees for their past damage assessment and restoration planning costs after one of its barges discharged approximately 6,734 barrels (282,828 gallons) of No. 6 fuel oil into the Mississippi River upriver of New Orleans in July 2008.

Canadian shipping company Algoma Central Corporation was fined $500,000 in the U.S. after pleading guilty to dumping wastewater into Lake Ontario.One of the Great Lakes operator's dry bulk carriers, the Algoma Strongfield, was built in China and delivered to Canada on May 30, 2017, by a crew from Redwise Maritime Services, B.V., a vessel transport company based in the Netherlands.During the delivery voyage, while manned by a Redwise crew, the oily water separator and oil content monitor malfunctioned or failed on multiple occasions, which resulted in an accumulation of unprocessed oily bilge water. On May 5, 2017, an Algoma employee…

Singapore-based shipping company Pacific International Lines (PIL) will pay $3 million in fines after pleading guilty to felony dumping violations in Hagatna, Guam.The vessel operating company and two engineers were sentenced for illegally discharging oil and for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharges of oily bilge water from the containership Kota Harum in 2019. PIL, chief engineer Maung Maung Soe, and second engineer Peng Luo Hai admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Kota Harum directly into the ocean and into Apra Harbor, Guam without being properly processed through required pollution prevention equipment.

Pacific Carriers Limited (PCL), a Singapore-based company that owns subsidiaries engaged in international shipping, was sentenced today in federal court before U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan in New Bern, N.C., after pleading guilty to violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, obstruction of justice, and for a failure to notify the U.S. Coast Guard of a hazardous condition on the cargo vessel Pac Antares.PCL pleaded guilty to a total of eight felony offenses across three judicial districts – the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Southern District of Texas, and the Eastern District of Louisiana. PCL was sentenced to pay a fine of $12 million…

Operator Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (Singapore) on Monday pleaded guilty in federal court to maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of bilge waste from the tanker vessel Topaz Express, a felony violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.According to court documents and information presented in court, the defendants illegally dumped bilge waste from the Hong Kong-flagged Topaz Express directly into the ocean, without properly processing it through pollution prevention equipment. The defendants admitted that these illegal discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s oil record book as required by law.

Fishing Vessel Owner and Operator Plead Guilty and Fined $1 Million for Discharging Oily Waste into the Coastal Waters of the United States Sea Harvest Inc., operator of the fishing vessels Enterprise and Pacific Capes, along with Fishing Vessel Enterprises Inc., the vessels’ owner, pleaded guilty today to violating the Clean Water Act for both knowing and negligent discharges of oily bilge water from the vessels’ engine rooms. The companies were sentenced to pay a $1 million criminal fine and serve a five-year term of probation.

Two shipping companies incorporated in Liberia pled guilty today in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, to failing to notify the U.S. Coast Guard of a hazardous condition on one if its 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.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.

US authorities announced that South Korea's top shipbuilding conglomerate Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) will pay a US$47 million fine for illegally importing and selling dirty diesel engines in violation of American environmental rules.US Justice Department and and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that between 2012 and 2015, the company imported nearly 2,300 diesel-powered heavy construction vehicles with engines that did not meet US emissions standards.“Hyundai put profits above the public’s health and the requirements of the law,” Jeffrey Bossert Clark, head of the department’s environment and natural resources division…

Portline Bulk International S.A. pleaded guilty in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, to one count of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and one count of Obstruction. The charges stem from the falsification of the Oil Record Book onboard the M/V Achilleus, a Maltese-flagged ocean-going bulk carrier ship managed by Defendant Portline.From April 2017 to August 2018, senior members of the vessel’s engineering team oversaw and participated in the bypass of the ship’s Oil Water Separator utilizing a yellow plastic hose, referred to as a magic pipe. The ship’s Chief Engineer made a series of fake entries and key omissions in the Oil Record Book in order to conceal the illegal overboard discharges of oily bilge water. On Aug.

German Shipping Operator Sentenced to Pay $3.2 Million for Obstruction of Justice and Falsifying Official Logs to Hide Deliberate Oil Pollution. The previously Convicted Company Committed Environmental Crimes While on Probation.A German shipping company, MST Mineralien Schiffahrt Spedition und Transport GmbH (MST), pleaded guilty and was sentenced today in Portland, Maine, for obstruction of justice and for maintaining false official records to conceal deliberate pollution from one of its ships, the M/V Marguerita, announced Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey B.

Challenge Fisheries LLC, Quinn Fisheries Inc., Charles Quinn II, and Charles Quinn III have agreed to pay a total of $414,000 in civil penalties and to perform fleet-wide improvements and other compliance assurance measures to resolve federal Clean Water Act claims stemming from oily bilge discharges from the commercial fishing vessel Challenge, and a related fuel oil discharge in August 2017 in New Bedford Harbor, Mass., the Department of Justice and the Coast Guard announced.In its complaint filed Monday, along with the lodging of a consent decree in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the United States alleges…

There are a number of federal and state statutes that intentionally and justifiably impose strict criminal liability. Persons who manufacture hazardous explosives and those who keep dangerous animals create serious risks to public safety. Clearly placing the burden of potential criminal liability, even in the absence of criminal negligence or intent, on those persons and entities is appropriate. There are other statutes, though, that fail to disclose whether the authors intended for the criminal penalties included for noncompliance to be strictly applied or whether criminal liability requires proof of criminal negligence or specific intent. Two such statutes of interest to the maritime community are the Refuse Act of 1899 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).

Environmental compliance challenges are nothing new to the cruise industry. Initiatives to enhance environmental compliance, from clean technologies to improved processes and procedures, have significantly reduced the impact cruise vessels have on the environment and improved the quality of discharge. These onboard initiatives address what is in the vessel’s control, but cannot simplify the increasingly complex regulatory environment in which cruise lines operate. Enforcement of environmental regulations is on the rise as international…

Wood Group PSN Inc., a Nevada corporation headquartered in Houston, was ordered to pay $9.5 million in two separate cases involving its conduct in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, Wood Group PSN was ordered to pay $7 million for falsely reporting over several years that personnel had performed safety inspections on offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in the Western District of Louisiana, and $1.8 million for negligently discharging oil into the Gulf of Mexico in violation of the Clean Water Act after an explosion on an offshore facility in the Eastern District of Louisiana, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Wood of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana Stephanie A. Finley, and U.S.

A captain of the fishing vessel (F/V) Native Sun pleaded guilty in federal court in Seattle for discharging oily-waste directly into the ocean in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and the federal conspiracy statute. Randall Fox pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Lasnik of the Western District of Washington to two criminal felony counts for violating APPS’ prohibition against discharging oily-wastes, namely machinery-space bilge water, directly into the ocean. According to court documents, Randall Fox and other coconspirators repeatedly discharged the oil-contaminated bilge water into the ocean using unapproved submersible pumps and hoses.

Princess Cruise Lines Ltd. was sentenced to pay a $40 million penalty – the largest-ever for crimes involving deliberate vessel pollution – related to illegal dumping overboard of oil contaminated waste and falsification of official logs in order to conceal the discharges. The sentence was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin G. Greenberg for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Patricia A.

Two shipping companies based in Egypt and Singapore will pay $1.9 million in penalties after pleading guilty in federal court to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and obstruction of justice for covering up the illegal dumping of oil-contaminated bilge water and garbage into the sea. Defendants Egyptian Tanker Company and Thome Ship Management are the owner and operator of the offending vessel, the 57,920 gross ton, 809-foot long, oceangoing, oil tank ship called the M/T ETC Mena. The plea agreement was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston for the Eastern District of Texas.

A fishing vessel company that operated in and around American Samoa was convicted and sentenced for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oil and garbage, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips. The company, Yuh Fa Fishery (Vanuatu) Co. Ltd., owned the F/V Yuh Fa No. 201, the vessel that was responsible for the pollution. Yuh Fa Fishery (Vanuatu) Co. Ltd., admitted that its engineers failed to document the illegal dumping of oily bilge water into the waters of the South Pacific Ocean without the use of required pollution prevention equipment. The Chief Engineer onboard the F/V Yuh Fa No.