Company fined $1.7 million in oily water case

The U.S. Justice Department said PACCSHIP, operator and manager of about 10 ships that regularly carry goods between Asia and U.S. ports, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $1.7 million fine for improperly transferring and discharging oil-contaminated waste from two of its ships.

The pleading was announced by Ronald J. Tenpas, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, and George E. B. Holding, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

The company pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and for using falsified records that concealed improper transfers and discharges of oil-contaminated waste.

PACCSHIP was sentenced to serve a four-year term of probation during which it must implement and follow a stringent environmental compliance program that includes a court-appointed monitor and outside independent auditing of its ships. The company will also pay a $400,000 community service payment.

The government's investigation began in April 2006, when a Coast Guard inspection of the Pac Antares, operated and managed by PACCSHIP while it was in Morehead City, N.C. uncovered evidence that crewmembers aboard the ship had improperly handled and disposed of the ship's oil-contaminated waste and falsified entries in the ship's official Oil Record Book to conceal these activities. During the inspection, crewmembers lied to Coast Guard inspectors in an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

The ship's second engineer pleaded guilty to making and causing the making of materially false statements in the ship's Oil Record Book relating to management of oil-contaminated waste aboard the ship.

Inspection of another PACCSHIP vessel, Pac Altair, in November 2006 also uncovered evidence that the ship had improperly handled and disposed of the ship's oil-contaminated waste and falsified entries in the ship's official Oil Record Book, and the chief engineer of that ship pleaded guilty to making materially false statements in the ship's Oil Record Book.

Engine room operations on board large oceangoing vessels such as those operated by PACCSHIP generate large amounts of waste oil and oil-contaminated bilge waste. International and U.S. law prohibit the discharge of waste containing more than 15 parts per million of oil without treatment by an oily water separator -- a required pollution prevention device. Law also requires all overboard discharges be recorded in an Oil Record Book, a required log which is regularly inspected by the Coast Guard. 

Source: American Shipper