SHIPPING COMPANY FINED $1.5MM FOR OMITTING OIL-DISCHARGE INCIDENTS
In early July, the United States Department of Justice announced that Clipper Shipping A.S. was convicted of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS, 33 U.S.C. §§1905-1915) and was fined $1.5 million.
Back on September 27, and again on October 1, 2021, while the M/T Clipper Saturn, a motor tanker, was anchored in Togo, a Chief Engineer is said to have directed that oily bilge water be released into the ocean. And these discharges were not recorded into the vessel’s “Oil Record Book.”
In a written statement, Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, noted, “We take seriously the crimes of illegally discharging oily bilge water at sea and falsifying records to obstruct the United States’ ability to investigate those discharges …. The U.S. Coast Guard must be able to rely on truthful records on board ships and the Department of Justice will continue to ensure polluters are held fully accountable.”
Bet they wished they could’ve discharged that.
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