Fresh from the bakery - MV Snow Flower

Here is an interesting read from the Burlington County Times The EPA has put this press release on it's website - the newspaper is mostly a verbatim reporduction of the press release-

A case of Oil record book falsification, magic pipe, and Whistle blowers (two of them)

Swedish shipping company fined for illegal dumping off NJ coast

March 10th, 2009

A Swedish shipping company was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and a $400,000 community service payment as part of its federal sentence for covering up the illegal dumping of oil waste in international waters of the coast of New Jersey, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr. announced.

Holy House Shipping AB of Stockholm also was placed on probation by U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle in Camden, who approved the plea agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, the community service funds will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for projects to restore and protect fragile marine habitats in New Jersey. Holy House must also implement an Environmental Management System/Compliance Plan to ensure there is no future dumping from any ship in its control that operates in U.S. ports.

Holy House, which operates approximately 14 oceangoing bulk carrier vessels, pleaded guilty in October, to a two-count information for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. The act implements an international treaty regulating the handling and disposal of oil waste at sea, and for making false statements to authorities.

Specifically, Holy House attempted to conceal the illegal dumping of oil-contaminated waste directly overboard from the M/V Snow Flower, an approximately 15,000 ton, 568 foot Cook Islands flagged oceangoing refrigerated ship, directly into the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in January and February 2008. One of those discharges took place only one day’s sail from New Jersey.

“The ports in northern and southern New Jersey are among the busiest in the nation, and shipping companies must recognize that we and the Department of Justice will be relentless when it comes to enforcing maritime law protecting our oceans from polluters,” said Marra.

Marra noted that this is the latest of several such prosecutions by the District of New Jersey in recent years in which international shipping companies have been fined millions of dollars and had ship captains and engineers fined and/or imprisoned for exactly the same conduct.

“The Coast Guard is committed to aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and international requirements designed to prevent pollution at sea. We thoroughly investigate credible reports of alleged illegal discharges of oil and/or tampering with shipboard anti-pollution equipment or falsifying oil discharge records,” said Captain David Scott, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector Delaware Bay. “We work closely with appropriate state and other Federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute environmental crimes, to promote compliance with these important environmental protection statutes.”

“We work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to investigate those who take shortcuts and despoil our marine environment,” said William Lometti, Special Agent in Charge of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division in New York. Lometti added that “Today’s sentence should send a clear message that those who violate the law and pollute our waters will be vigorously prosecuted.”

On Feb. 27, 2008, U.S. Coast Guard inspectors from Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay boarded the M/V Snow Flower at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in Gloucester City for an inspection.

Inspectors identified discrepancies in the Oil Record Book. Oceangoing vessels like the M/V Snow Flower are required by international and U.S. law to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book that records any transfer or disposal of oily waste. Inspectors also located a “magic pipe,” a section of pipe installed for temporary periods at sea and used to discharge oil waste into the oceans, officials said.

Judge Simandle also approved a motion by the government that $375,000 of the fine be awarded to two crew members of the M/V Snow Flower who alerted the U.S. Coast Guard to the illegal dumping. The government attorneys noted in a motion to the Court that the two whistle-blowers risked their careers in the maritime industries by informing the Coast Guard of this crime and that a “substantial monetary award” both rewards the crew members for taking that risk and may provide an incentive for fellow crew members to alert inspectors and investigators of similar conduct on other ships.

From the environmental crimes blog

By Walter J - see his rather interesting follow ups from a lawyer's perspective on his blog -

March 28, 2007

The M/T KRITON

The M/T KRITON is an oil products tanker built in 1991. The vessel is owned by a company incorporated under the laws of Liberia and is managed by a Greek company. Not unusual at all in the shipping world. The vessel is registered in the Bahamas and operates pursuant to

the laws and authority of the Bahamian Flag State.

On March 20, 2007, the vessel arrived at New Haven Harbor in New Haven, Connecticut. After its arrival, a team of United States Coast Guard officers boarded the vessel to conduct an inspection. At that time, no deficiencies were found by the USCG boarding team. One day later, in the middle of the night, several additional USCG officers and individuals (some were apparently criminal investigators) boarded the vessel. This USCG team cited the vessel for "a suspected Marpol Violation - improper Oil/Record Book." Despite its classification that the “suspected Marpol Violation” was at worst a mere record keeping violation, the USCG detained the vessel. Captain of the Port Orders were issued. The Orders requested that the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency withhold the vessel’s customs clearance on the mere allegation that the USCG may have discovered a suspected violation which may subject the vessel owner and/or operator to a fine or civil penalty. In order to have the vessel released, the USCG is demanding a $1,000,000.00 bond.

Wait, it gets better. The USCG Legal Office has now required, in addition to the “satisfactory security agreement,” that the vessel: 1) agree to have twelve individual crew members leave the vessel and, thereafter, that the vessel maintain them in a New Haven motel for a minimum of 150 days; 2) agree to house, feed, and lodge these twelve individuals for a minimum of 150 days; 3) provide a per diem to these twelve individuals from the day they disembark the vessel for a minimum of 150 days; 4) agree, irrespective of the terms and conditions of the crew members individual employment contracts, to continue the employment of these twelve crew members and continue to pay their wages while they are detained by the Government in New Haven; and 5) ultimately bear the costs and expenses to repatriate these twelve crew members.

Despite requests for an explanation as to the basis and legal authority for its actions, the USCG has failed to respond.

All of this on the MERE ALLEGATION that there MAY be a violation.

From the EPA website

some old news - this was at the time when ORB started to become a major issue...

Shipping Company is Sentenced for False Oil Record Book

Release date: 02/03/2005

Contact Information:

Contact: Stacie Findon 202-564-7338 / findon.stacie@epa.gov

(02/03/05) Pacific and Atlantic Corp. of Athens Greece, operator of the Motor Vessel John G. Lemos, pleaded guilty
and was sentenced on Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland, Ore., on
charges that it falsified the Lemos' Oil Record Book. Pacific and Atlantic was ordered to pay a $500,000
fine, $250,000 of which will be paid to the Columbia River Estuary Coastal Fund. In addition, Pacific and
Atlantic must also establish an environmental compliance program for all 10 vessels in its fleet. On Jan.
4, the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Office conducted a routine Port State Control Inspection of the
Lemos at the Port of Portland. The Lemos is a 473-foot, Cypress-flagged bulk cargo carrier. The
inspection of the vessel revealed false entries in the ship's Oil Record Book. After initiating a joint criminal
investigation, U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service and EPA Criminal Investigation Division special
agents executed a federal search and seizure warrant on the Lemos and presented evidence to the grand
jury three days later. Falsifying an Oil Record Book can prevent regulators from determining that a ship is
following required pollution control practices. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in
Portland.

Code 26 - entries for bunkering

H-26.4 - Bunkering (PS - Click on the images for a larger view)

Whenever a vessel bunkers fuel or bulk lubricating oil, an entry should be made in the ORB. The requirement of what should be entered, usually reproduced in the initial pages of many Oil record books (I know for sure about flags of Hong Kong, Liberia, Panama and Marshall islands), is given below -

Now look at the ORB page of this ship I inspected in Los Angeles. Do you notice anything wrong?

Yes - you got it. Under 26.4 , quantities are required in tonnes - while those given are in - you guessed right, cubic metres.


Some Chief Engineers have asked me how should they know the quantity in tonnes - all receipts are given in cubic metres (or gallons, in USA). Simple - check out the data sheets, which given you the density. You need not apply temperature corrections, since the difference is very small. Some Chief Engineers preced it with "approx." which is also acceptable.




The problem .....

You may say - these are minor errors and do not mean the vessel is indulging in a marpol violation. True... and any DA would respect that. Trouble is (from a seafarer's point of view):

a) It makes the seafarer look bad in front of an outsider (like me) - be it USCG, PSC, a vetting inspector

b) It embarrasses the Master. Most Masters have little knowledge of ORB though that is slowly changing) and it worries them when the PSC inspector says - "Captain, there are some discrepancies in your ORB." Omigosh... in a flash of a second, images of magic pipes, violations, courts and jails whiz past his mind - for that is the scare we have given him, without tools to understand it.

c) Though not often in the United states, my brethren tell me these are common notes made in Port state control inspection finding sheets in a number of countries. Once there - it will always remain on records for eternity (esp. on pages like www.equasis.org)

d) Vetting inspectors love this entry. Now that Rightship has commenced similar inspections on bulk carriers (for the past abut 2 years) , you can be sure they too will be looking for it.

While on the topic, here are a few more common errors under H-26 -

1) Entry for diesel oil bunkered
- Many engineers forget to fill this in

2) Entry for lubricating oil - when received in drums
- Many Engineers erroneously enter this too. Entries for Lub oil are only needed when in BULK - NOT WHEN RECEIVED IN DRUMS.

3) Type of Lubricating oil (26.4)
- Many engineers only write the quantity, but not the type (eg: Mobil M-430)
- Note : You need not write the type of fuel oil (26.3), but it is not a bad idea to do so... if not for anything else, then for the sake of the next engineer who would find this a good quick to find record.

4) Colour of pen
- Always write your record book in BLACK pen - it will help you. Not blue, definitely not pencil. Reason - It irritates my friends in the EPA and Fish & game department, when they find all their copies of ORB pages difficult (imposible?!) to read- just because some jerk wrote it in light blue colour. Black comes up well in photocopies, optical readers and scanners.

- Though it was an old ISO requirement that signatures should be in blue (to distinguish between a photocopy and original), today's forensics have other ways of finding this out. With the advent of coour photocopiers and scanners, this requirement is not very valid today.

And trust me - you really don't wanna irritate some of those EPA gentlemen and ladies.


By the way... in the above example, in all fairness, there are some factors which WOULD FAVOUR the seafarer -



1) Entries are neat... - it makes a fantastic first impression - and impressions do matter. (Some of my friends say...."only impressions matter" ... but lets have that argument some other day!)
2) They are detailed (notice 26.1 - place of berthing - complete details of the berth - not just the port)
3) 26.4 too has detailed entries viz. the tanks, purpose, etc.

(2) and (3) show sincerity... something every lawyer true to his salt tries his best to convince the judge and jury of in a court of law (if you have been unfortunate enough to reach there!). It makes the "litres" mistake appear just like an "error" and not a "wilful omission".




While on it, you must have noticed the over-writing... looks bad when presented as evidence.