Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping has been fined $2.5m in a US federal court for oil dumping from an aframax.
DSD has been sentenced of its convictions in Mobile, Alabama, for obstructing justice, violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), tampering with witnesses and conspiring to commit these offenses.
Three crew from the 104,000-dwt Stavanger Blossom (built 2007) were also convicted and sentenced to up to six months in jail.
$500,000 of the $2.5 million fine is said to have been ordered to be paid to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation to support marine research and coastal habitat protection in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay.
DSD has also been placed on a three year term of probation and was ordered to implement an environmental compliance plan to ensure the company’s vessels obeyed domestic and international environmental regulations in the future.
DSD Shipping is said to have operated the vessel from 2010 to 2014 without a functioning oily-water separator, with an internal memo dated January 29 of 2010 by a vessel engineer said to have warned DSD that the vessel's pollution prevention equipment did not work.
The Coast Guard said the ship had discharged 20,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water in just the last two months of its operation.
“When a company fails to comply with our nation’s environmental laws, it can have a devastating effect on both public health and wildlife,” said Special Agent in Charge Andy Castro of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Alabama.