Istanbul-based ship management company Ciner Gemi Acente İşletme ve Ticket A.Ş. was found guilty for routinely discharging oily waste-water into the sea from its carrier ship without proper disposal equipment.
Incident:
Ciner operated 44-year -ton carrier ship carried cargo to the Port of Baltimore, MD. The crew followed the illegal practice of discharging oily water and sludge from the ship into the sea regularly. Also, they covered up the practice by falsifying the oil record book between March 2014 and November 2014 intentionally.
The U.S. Department of Justice has found:
- John C. Malaki, the chief engineer of the vessel, being guilty for failing to maintain a proper oil record book and was sentenced to 6 months supervised probation along with a $ 1, 050,000 fine.
- Ulyses A. Atabay, a second engineer, being guilty as he ordered the crew not to use the ship’s oil-water separator as required by law. He was sentenced a year of unsupervised probation
Reports state that Ciner will pay some of his penalty, about $ 1, 050,000, in the form an organizational community service payment to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to be used for funding projects aimed at the restoration of marine and aquatic resources in the District of Maryland. The ship management company, under the watch of an independent monitor, will also implement an environmental compliance plan and train its employees and ship crews to prevent maritime pollution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
