Efploia Shipping, Obstruction of Justice & Environmental Crimes, Maryland 2011

Two shipping corporations, Efploia Shipping and Aquarosa Shipping, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and environmental crimes in Maryland.

The companies, which managed and owned the M/V Aquarosa, a 33,005 gross ton cargo ship, were sentenced to pay $1.2 million and serve three years of probation. During this time, they will be required to implement a government-approved environmental plan that includes audits conducted by an independent firm and review by a court-appointed monitor.

Efploia Shipping, a Marshall Islands corporation based in Greece, was the technical manager of the M/V Aquarosa, while Aquarosa Shipping, a company based in Denmark, was the owner of the vessel. Both corporations pleaded guilty to four felony counts: obstruction of justice, making material false statements, and the environmental crimes of knowingly failing to maintain an accurate oil record book and knowingly failing to maintain an accurate garbage record book, both in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS).

According to papers filed in court, senior ship engineers started dumping oil-contaminated bilge waste on the ship’s first voyage after it was completed in June 2010 in China. One method involved removing the blocking mechanism inside a valve so that waste could be pumped overboard. Another method involved a so-called “magic pipe” consisting of a long rubber hose and metal flanges welded together onboard to bypass required pollution prevention equipment.

The investigation began after an engineer complained to the U.S. Coast Guard when the ship arrived in Baltimore in February 2011. The crew member provided the Coast Guard with his cell phone containing 300 photographs showing how a magic pipe was being used to discharge sludge and oily waste overboard and to bypass the ship’s oily water separator, a required piece of pollution prevention equipment. Plastic garbage bags containing oil-soaked rags were also dumped overboard.

The ship’s Chief Engineer, Andreas Konstantinidis, is currently incarcerated for his role. He pleaded guilty in December to obstruction of justice charges and was sentenced to three months in prison.

Both Efploia Shipping and Aquarosa Shipping were sentenced to pay a total of $1.2 million. Of that amount, each defendant was ordered to pay $275,000 in organizational community service payments to the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, which will receive a total of $550,000 earmarked for projects involving Chesapeake Bay.

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