Pacific Carriers Limited (PCL) has been fined $12m in a federal US court for illegally discharging oil water and rubbish from one of its bulk carriers.
The incidents came to light after a crew member was said to have informed authorities that he had “information about illegal discharges that had taken place on the vessel”.
The Singapore shipowner pleaded guilty to violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, obstruction of justice, and for a failure to notify the US Coast Guard (USCG) of a hazardous condition on the 27,659-dwt Pac Antares (built 2003).
PCL pleaded guilty to a total of eight felony offenses across three judicial districts and in addition to the fine faces being placed on probation for four years.
It has also been ordered to implement a comprehensive environmental compliance plan as a special condition of probation.
In pleading guilty, PCL admitted that crew members onboard the Pac Antares “knowingly failed” to record in the vessel’s oil record book the overboard discharge of oily bilge water and oil waste without the use of required pollution-prevention equipment.
The offences are said to have taken place over a six-month period between April 2019 until the vessel arrived in Morehead City, North Carolina, on 29 September 2019.
Falsified garbage record book
The Robert Kuok-backed shipowner also admitted that the crew discharged oily garbage and plastic overboard and falsified the garbage record book.
PCL also admitted that the duct keel was being used to store oily waste which constituted a hazardous condition under the Ports and Waterways Safety Act and it should have been immediately reported to the USCG sector North Carolina.
Authorities said investigators found over 60,000 gallons of oily water being stored in the duct keel, which took several days and a third-party contractor to properly clean out.
They also said that a “large trove of evidence” that oily waste and garbage had been discharged from the vessel using a “configuration of drums, flexible hoses and flanges" to bypass the vessel’s oily water separator.
PCL told TradeWinds in a statement that it had a "longstanding and clearly stated commitment" to the protection of the environment and had "zero tolerance" for any improper discharge of oily water in violation of Marpol or any other environmental regulations or laws.
"Such violations are against the vessel's and PCL’s independently approved and certified environmental management system (EMS), which complies with the requirements of all international regulations." it said.
As a result of the investigation, PCL said it had agreed to implement "enhanced systems, processes, training, and equipment, to ensure strict compliance" with all relevant environmental laws and regulations and to "prevent any future violations".
