The chief engineer of a bulker has been sentenced to prison for deliberately discharging approximately 37 854 litres (10 000 gallons) of oil-contaminated bilge water overboard in US waters off the coast of New Orleans.
He was also charged and found guilty of obstructing justice.
Kirill Kompaniets, chief engineer of the Gannet Bulker, committed the crime during a voyage in 2021. A crew member reported the incident to the US Coast Guard via social media. Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown this week sentenced Kompaniets 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.
Repair operations to correct a problem with the discharge of clean ballast water resulted in the engine room flooding. After the leak had been controlled, 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.
Kompaniets was also charged with obstruction of justice as he had attempted to conceal the illegal discharge.
He pleaded guilty, and in court papers admitted to making false statements to the coast guard that concealed the cause and nature of a hazardous condition, concealing that the engine room of the vessel had flooded, and that oil-contaminated bilge water had been discharged overboard. He also admitted to destroying the computer alarm printouts for the period of the illegal discharge, holding meetings with subordinate crew members, and directing them to make false statements to the coast guard. He made a false Oil Record Book that failed to disclose the illegal discharge and ordered subordinate engine room employees to delete all evidence from their cell phones before the coast guard inspection.
Kompaniets also confessed to preparing a retaliatory document accusing the whistle-blower of poor performance as part of an effort to discredit him.
“The intentional pollution of US waters and the deliberate cover-up are serious criminal offences that will not be tolerated,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said.
“Prosecutions such as this one should send a clear message to those that would violate the law and endanger our precious natural resources.”
“The defendant in this case deliberately disregarded procedures designed to protect the environment from contaminants and then attempted to hide his actions,” US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Duane Evans, said.
“Today’s announcement emphasises that both our office and our federal partners are committed to holding accountable all parties whose criminality jeopardises our environment and places the public and the ecosystem at risk.”
