Phil. You could have had a real rant. You know. Something that affects us all, not just soxs unability to think to use gloves when using glue! LOL!
Posted by: excel
In reply to: None Date:5/29/2003 12:17:17 AM
Post #of 14909
Want to know why our salmon runs are almost gone?
Read the below. Here a company admits to dumping sludge with every ship they own for 7 years and only a 5 million dollar fine.
Heck I don't care if they can't pay.
Fine them all more!
Sell their ships and use the money for more law enforcement if they can't pay.
They are stealing from all of us one of the most important recource we have!
The ocean goes bad you just can't buy another one!
Cargo ship fined $275,000 for dumping sludge at sea
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter
A Ukrainian-owned cargo ship must pay $275,000 after inspectors in Portland found its crew had doctored logbooks and installed bypass systems to dump tons of oily waste overboard at sea, according to a plea agreement.
It's just the latest in a rash of prosecutions in the Northwest — 13 involving the Columbia River alone — against shipping companies that have been caught falsifying records to cover up illegal dumping at sea.
Last month, Coast Guard inspectors boarded the M/V Grumant, a 557-foot cargo carrier, for a routine inspection as it was preparing to pick up a load of soda ash at the Port of Portland. Once aboard, inspectors found the ship's Oil Record Book — a log required by international law — misrepresented how the ship was dealing with its waste.
Ships are required to separate oil from wastewater that accumulates in the vessel's engine room. Typically, the oil is burned in an onboard incinerator and the water is treated until it contains fewer than 15 parts per million of oil, at which point it can be dumped overboard.
But increasingly, the U.S. Department of Justice is finding that shippers have rigged simple hose systems to bypass the separator, and are just dumping waste untreated.
In the past year alone, more than 20 ships in Vancouver, Wash., Portland, Tacoma and Alaska have been caught covering up illegal dumping.
Last fall in Alaska, Boyang Marine and Boyang Ltd., which carry refrigerated seafood cargo, were fined $5 million after admitting their entire 12-ship fleet had been covering illegal discharges for seven years. One ship's engineer pleaded guilty in March to dumping 20 tons of oily sludge on each voyage between Japan and Washington.
The Grumant "had noted in the Oil Record Book that they used the incinerator on a regular basis, but when we asked the crew to start it up they couldn't get it started, and clearly hadn't used it in some time," said Coast Guard inspector Sean Morrison.
Inspectors also found a discharge valve that should only be used to dump clean water coated with thick black oil.
"Those systems are set up so that there's an alarm that goes off and shuts the system down if that water contains oil," Morrison said.
Inspectors also found a 10-foot section of flexible rubber hose that had been used to bypass the ship's oily water separator.
Attorneys representing the ship's operator, Grid Odessa Ltd., could not be reached.
The plea agreement was reached Friday.
It's impossible to gauge how often such dumping occurs, but "this isn't one rogue individual," said Cmdr. Dan Pippenger, chief of Coast Guard inspections in Portland. "It's a practice that is somehow supported by the culture, either by individual companies, or in some cases, fleets.
"The dumping, we think, and know, is being done on the high seas, away from land," he said.
But the practice is notoriously difficult to catch, so "the U.S. Attorney's Office is prosecuting them on presenting false official documents."
The Grumant's fine is actually substantially lower than other cases because Grid Odessa said it was a small outfit with limited cash reserves.
"If we'd persisted in seeking more, they insisted they would just abandon the ship and leave it in port," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Ross said.
The vessel remains in port while operators try to correct other safety violations.
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