The Russian chief engineer of an unnamed Marshall Islands bulk carrier has been sentenced to prison for deliberately discharging approximately 10,000 gallons of oil-contaminated bilge water overboard in US waters off the coast of New Orleans last year, and for obstructing justice. The illegal conduct was first reported to the US Coast Guard by a crew member over social media.
Kirrill Kompaniets was sentenced to serve a year and a day in prison, pay a $5,000 fine and $200 special assessment and serve six months of supervised release.
Kompaniets had entered a guilty plea on May 18th to two felony counts in the case.
Repair operations to correct a problem with the discharge of clean ballast water resulted in engine room flooding. After the leak was controlled, Chief Engineer Kompanietes and a subordinate engineer dumped the oily bilge water overboard while the ship was at an anchorage near the Southwest Passage off the Louisiana coast. The ship’s required pollution prevention devices – an oily-water separator and oil content monitor – were not
used, and the discharge was not recorded in the Oil Record Book, a required ship log, the DOJ said.
Kompaniets was also charged with obstruction of justice based on various efforts to conceal the illegal discharge.
In a joint factual statement filed in Court with his guilty plea, Kompaniets admitted to:
Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said that “the intentional pollution of U.S. waters and the deliberate cover-up are serious criminal offenses that will not be tolerated. Prosecutions such as this one should send a clear message to those that would violate the law and endanger
our precious natural resources.”
The Department of Justice said that the investigation was continuing.
