DSD Shipping fined $2.5 million for oily bilge dumping

Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping has been sentenced to pay a $2.5 million fine resulting from convictions in Mobile, Ala., for dumping oily waste and garbage into the sea, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

   Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping has been sentenced to pay a $2.5 million fine resulting from convictions in Mobile, Ala., for dumping oily waste and garbage into the sea, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.
   The company was ordered to pay $500,000 of the penalty to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation to fund marine research and enhance coastal habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay.
   DSD was charged with obstructing justice, violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), tampering with witnesses and conspiring to commit these offenses, the Justice Department said.  
   In addition to the monetary penalty, DSD was placed on a three-year probation and ordered to implement an environmental compliance plan to ensure the company’s vessels obeyed domestic and international environmental regulations in the future.  
   According to court documents, DSD operated the 56,000-gross-ton tanker, Stavanger Blossom, from 2010 to 2014 without an operable oily-water separator as required by law. DSD from the vessel illegally discharged about 20,000 gallons of oil-contaminated waste water and plastic bags containing 270 gallons of sludge into the ocean during the last two-and-a-half months of the vessel’s operation, the department said.
  “The evidence also established that DSD lied about these activities by maintaining fictitious record books aboard the vessel,” it added.
   Three senior engineering officers employed by DSD to operate the ship were also sentenced. Bo Gao, chief engineer of the vessel, and Xiaobing Chen, second engineer of the vessel, were both sentenced to six months in jail. Xin Zhong, fourth engineer of the vessel, was sentenced to two months in jail. All three face the loss of their marine engineering license and exclusion from employment in the merchant marine. A fourth DSD employee, Daniel Paul Dancu, pleaded guilty in October 2015, and will be sentenced on April 11.