Bernhard Schulte Ship Management (Singapore) PTE LTD, a vessel operating company, pleaded guilty in the U.S. federal court to maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of bilge waste from the tank vessel Topaz Express.
Chief Engineer Skenda Reddy and vessel Second Engineer Padmanaban Samirajan previously pled guilty to their involvement in the offense.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Bernhard will pay a total fine of USD1.75 million and serve a 4-year term of probation. The U.S. Coast Guard said that this is the largest fine ever imposed in the District of Hawaii for this type of offense.
Furthermore, Bernhard must implement a robust Environmental Compliance Plan, which applies to all 38 vessels operated by the company that call on U.S. ports.
“The Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice is charged with enforcing federal and international laws designed to protect our oceans from pollutants,” said Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“Under those laws, vessel operators are required to either properly treat their bilge waste onboard before discharging it into the sea or offload their bilge waste to disposal facilities. This case should serve as a deterrent to individuals and companies that flout our laws and pollute our oceans.”
“Prosecutions like this one are important because, by holding companies accountable for the harm they cause to the ocean’s ecosystem, we do our part to protect the planet and its finite resources. In Hawaii, we are surrounded by the beauty of the Pacific Ocean, and companies that intentionally damage the ocean’s ecosystem must be held accountable for their criminal conduct,” said U.S. Attorney Kenji M. Price.
According to court documents and information presented in court, the defendants illegally dumped bilge waste from the Topaz Express directly into the ocean, without properly processing it through pollution prevention equipment. Bilge waste typically contains oil contamination from the operation and cleaning of machinery on the vessel.
The defendants admitted that these illegal discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s oil record book as required by law.
As disclosed by the U.S. Coast Guard, on three separate occasions between May and July 2019, Bernhard, acting through Chief Engineer Skenda Reddy and Second Engineer Padmanaban Samirajan, its employees, used a portable pneumatic pump and hose to bypass the ship’s pollution prevention equipment and discharge bilge waste directly into the ocean.
The USCG added that during the inspection of the Topaz Express, Reddy destroyed paper sounding sheets and altered a copy of the vessel’s electronic sounding log, in an effort to conceal how much bilge waste had been discharged overboard without being processed through the vessel’s pollution prevention equipment.