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Eurobulk fined $1.1m in US pollution case

Violations of Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships took place in April 2023, DOJ

Greece-based Eurobulk was fined $1.1m after pleading guilty to violating US pollution laws

GREECE-BASED Eurobulk was fined $1.1m by a US judge after admitting to violations of US vessel pollution laws, the Department of Justice announced.

The charges arose from violations relating to the Liberia-flagged panamax bulker Good Heart (IMO: 9669380), which was inspected by the US Coast Guard in the port of Corpus Christi in April 2023.

According to the announcement, the vessel’s crew presented coastguard inspectors false records that concealed “illegal transfers and discharges of oily bilge water from the vessel”.

Eurobulk admitted it falsified records and violated the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, which is the US implementation of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol) treaty.

The vessel’s former chief engineer, Greek national Christos Charitos, previously pled guilty to violating APPS and was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine, the DOJ said.

According to the DOJ, Charitos ordered lower-ranking crew to discharge the contents of the ship’s duct keel — a pipe tunnel that starts in the engine room and runs under the cargo holds — directly into the ocean, bypassing the ship’s oily water separator. This happened “at least twice” in April 2023, and the discharges contained oil, the agency said.

Also during that month, “Charitos ordered the second engineer to make a fresh water connection to the OWS”.

“By making such a connection, the oil content meter on the OWS was ‘tricked’ so that the oil content meter could not verify the actual oil content of the discharge from the OWS,” the DOJ said.

“All of these discharges should have been recorded in the ORB [oil record book]. However, no entries were made.”

Eurobulk was approached for comment after hours on Friday.

In addition to the fine, the company will serve a four-year probation term, during which it will be subject to an environmental compliance plan.

“The coastguard and our partners remain resolute in our mission to protect our waters, and we encourage the public to continue reporting any suspicious activities as every report is essential in our ongoing effort to preserve the health of our marine ecosystems,” said Rear Admiral David Barata, commander of the US Coast Guard’s Eighth District.

 

 

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