Reefer ship charged with pollution violation

Reefer ship charged with pollution violation The U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has filed a six-count indictment charging a ship’s operator and crew with failing to record illegal discharges of waste.
   The government charged that water contaminated with oil was released directly into the ocean by the vessel Valparaiso Star. It claims that while the ship was docked in Philadelphia in January, the vessel presented a false record book to Coast Guard inspectors in an attempt to conceal the illegal discharges.
   The Valparaiso Star is a 17-year-old, Liberian flagged, refrigerated bulk containership operated by Fleet Management Ltd. of Hong Kong.
   The company, captain and another crewman are charged with conspiracy, failure to maintain an accurate oil record book on the Valparaiso Star in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, false statements, and obstruction of agency proceedings.
   The indictment charges that the defendants conspired to conceal illegal discharges of oily-based waste, including oil-contaminated sludge and oil contaminated bilge water from the ship by failing to record them in the vessel’s oil record book.
   “The indictment also alleges that the ship’s management company
(Fleet) and captain obstructed the investigation by attempting to influence witness testimony,” said U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan.
   According to the charges, the ship’s chief engineer ordered members of the crew to use a flexible hose to bypass pollution control technology on the ship and to dispose of untreated oily waste, sludge and bilge water directly overboard.
   The crew also manipulated the pumps and valves associated with the internal, hard-piped bilge/ballast system, also known as the emergency dewatering system, discharging water contaminated with oil from the ship’s bilge holding wells directly into the ocean and failed to record such discharges in the ship’s oil record book, a document required to be maintained by the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, a U.S. law created to prevent such pollution.