Unix Line has pleaded guilty in a US court to charges of illegally dumping oily bilge water, the US Justice Department (DoJ) has confirmed.
In pleading guilty, Unix Line admitted that its crew members on board the 26,200-dwt Zao Galaxy (built 2012) knowingly failed to record the overboard discharges without the use of the required pollution-prevention equipment.
US officials said the vessel, which had sailed from the Philippines with a cargo of palm oil arrived in California on 11 February 2019, where it underwent a US Coast Guard (USCG) inspection and examination.
Examiners discovered that during the voyage, a Unix Line-affiliated ship officer directed crew members to discharge oily bilge water overboard, using a configuration of drums, flexible pipes, and flanges to bypass the vessel’s oil water separator.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for 20 March 2020 before US District Court Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland, California.
The prosecution was said to be the result of a year-long investigation by the USCG Investigative Service and the Investigations Division of Coast Guard Sector San Francisco.
