On November 23, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered two German shipping companies that owned and operated the cargo ship “Nils B” to jointly pay $750,000 as part of their sentences for knowingly failing to keep records related to the discharge of sludge into the ocean.
W. Bockstiegel Reederei GmBH & Co. KG, which operated the vessel, and W. Bockstiegel GmBH & Co. Reederei KG MS “Nils B,” which owned it, pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court last month to a violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for failing to accurately maintain an Oil Record Book for the “Nils B.”
By not maintaining an accurate Oil Record Book, the firms failed to disclose that oil-contaminated water had been discharged into the ocean from the vessel without the use of pollution prevention equipment.
On Aug. 5, 2014, personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard boarded the vessel after its entry into the Port of San Diego and discovered that the crew had failed to keep an Oil Record Book for a significant period and that modifications had been made to piping coming from the Oil Water Separator. They also found oil was in discharge piping that should not have been present, according to the plea agreement.
The defendants acknowledged that Coast Guard examiners took oil samples from the Oil Water Separator’s overboard discharge valve and from the vessel’s sludge tank, and that samples from the two locations matched.
Sludge is never to be discharged through an Oil Water Separator; only machinery space bilge water may be discharged in that manner.
The Coast Guard also discovered a black hose near the Oil Water Separator that contained slightly weathered light fuel oil mixed with lubricating oil. In the industry, such a hose is known as a “magic hose,” because it makes the oil and the sludge disappear like magic.
As part of their plea, the defendants admitted that the Oil Record Book on board the vessel did not disclose any discharges of sludge between the time that the overboard discharge valve had been cleaned in dry dock in June 2014 and its entry into the Port of San Diego in August 2014.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the defendants to jointly pay a fine of $500,000 and to make a community service payment of $250,000 for the benefit of the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve to further research related to the effects of pollution on the marine estuarine environment, which was paid in full.
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Source: Times of San Diego
