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San Diego, California – September 9, 2022
New Trade Ship Management S.A., a vessel operating company, and vessel Chief Engineer Dennis Plasabas were sentenced in federal court today for environmental crimes.
The company and its engineer pleaded guilty August 9, 2022, to maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oily bilge water from the bulk carrier vessel Longshore.
New Trade was sentenced to pay a fine of $1.1 million, a term of four years of probation, and ordered to hire an independent monitor to audit environmental compliance during the period of probation; Plasabas was sentenced to a term of 12 months in custody.
In pleading guilty, New Trade and Plasabas admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Longshore directly into the ocean without being properly processed through required pollution prevention equipment.
Oily bilge water typically contains oil contamination from the operation and cleaning of machinery on the vessel. The defendants also admitted that these illegal discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s Oil Record Book as required by law.
Specifically, on two separate occasions between October and December 2021, Chief Engineer Plasabas, who was employed by New Trade, ordered lower-ranking crew members to use a portable pneumatic pump and hose to bypass pollution prevention equipment by transferring oily bilge water from the vessel’s Bilge Holding Tank to the vessel’s Sewage Tank, from where it was discharged directly into the ocean.
Plasabas then caused the ship’s Master to fail to record these improper transfers and overboard discharges in the vessel’s Oil Record Book. Additionally, to create a false and misleading electronic record as if the pollution prevention equipment had been properly used, Plasabas directed lower-ranking crew members to pump clean sea water into the vessel’s Bilge Holding Tank in the same quantity as the amount of oily bilge water that he had ordered transferred to the Sewage Tank.
Plasabas then processed the clean sea water through the vessel’s pollution prevention equipment as if it was oily bilge water to make it appear that the pollution prevention equipment was being properly used when in fact it was not. The electronic records indicate that approximately 9,600 gallons of clean sea water were run through the pollution prevention equipment.
Key Facts
- State: California
- Category: Environmental Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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