The chief engineer of an Eagle Bulk Shipping vessel has been sentenced to prison for dumping oil-contaminated bilge water.
The US Justice Department said district judge Nannette Jolivette Brown ordered Kirill Kompaniets to spend a year and a day in prison, in addition to paying $5,200 and spending six months on supervised release.
The sentencing in a federal court in New Orleans came after Kompaniets, a Russian national, pleaded guilty to knowingly discharging oily water off the US and to obstruction of justice.
Court records show that Kompaniets was employed aboard Eagle Bulk’s 57,800-dwt supramax Gannet Bulker (built 2010) at the time of the incident.
“The defendant in this case deliberately disregarded procedures designed to protect the environment from contaminants and then attempted to hide his actions,” said Duane Evans, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department said about 37,900 litres of oil-contaminated bilge water was discharged from the vessel while it was in US waters off New Orleans.
That happened after engine room flooding during repairs aimed at fixing a problem with the discharge of clean ballast water from the ship.
Dumped overboard
After the leak was brought under control, Kompaniets and a subordinate engineer dumped the oily bilgewater overboard at an anchorage off Louisiana’s Southwest Passage.
“The ship’s required pollution prevention devices — an oily-water separator and oil content monitor — were not used, and the discharge was not recorded in the oil record book, a required ship log,” prosecutors said.
A crew member used social media to report the crime to the US Coast Guard.
Prosecutors said the obstruction of justice charge stemmed from efforts by Kompaniets to conceal the illegal discharge, including making false statements to the Coast Guard, destroying computer alarm printouts and directing subordinates to lie to US authorities.
The Justice Department said he also admitted to making false oil record book entries, ordering subordinates to delete evidence from their cell phones and preparing a document that sought to discredit the whistleblower.
“The intentional pollution of US waters and the deliberate cover-up are serious criminal offences that will not be tolerated,” said assistant attorney general Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“Prosecutions such as this one should send a clear message to those that would violate the law and endanger our precious natural resources.”
Prosecutors said the case is continuing.
In a quarterly report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in August, the New York-listed company said that it does not know what penalties may be imposed in the case, although it does not expect the case to have “material impact” on its financial condition or results.
“We take any such activity extremely seriously as it is a gross violation of all our environmental, safety and operating practices,” Eagle Bulk spokesman Darrell Wilson told TradeWinds.
“As previously stated, we have and will continue to cooperate with the government during this investigation.”
