US continues legal action against polluting vessels

US continues legal action against polluting vessels

     US courts continue the legal pressure on vessels that deliberately pollute the seas in recent convictions.

 

     The Italian shipping company Giusseppe Bottiglieri was fined US$1.3 million by the Mobile, Alabama court after the company and the chief engineer of the Bottiglieri Challenger were found guilty of deliberately falsifying records to conceal the discharge of oily wastewater directly into the sea. $300,000 of the fine is in the form of a community service payment to an environmental foundation. The chief engineer was sentenced to one month in jail. He and other crewmembers had been accused of deliberately discharging oily bilge waste from the vessel as it sailed from Singapore to Brazil and then on to Mobile. A Coast Guard inspection in Mobile in January 2012 found that these discharges, through a so-called "magic pipe" to bypass pollution control equipment, had not been recorded in the vessel’s oil record book.

 

     In a further case, a Washington, DC court found the New Zealand fishing company Sanford Ltd guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and violating pollution law. The principal chief engineer was also found guilty of obstruction of justice and knowingly failing to maintain an accurate oil record book; another chief engineer had previously pleaded guilty to similar charges.

 

     The convictions follow a US Coast Guard inspection of the San Nikunau fishing vessel in Pago Pago, American Samoa, in July 2011. The inspection found that the vessel had been making false entries and omissions in its oil record book to account for the handling of its oil waste.

 

     The company faces a maximum fine of US$3 million, and the chief engineer faces up to up to 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice.