Three seafarers who blew the whistle on illegal dumping from Sabine Transportation tankers have been given a $1m thank you by a US court.
Iowa based Sabine was fined $2m by Judge Mark W Bennett who ordered that half the penalty should be awarded to three crew members of the 37,753-dwt Trinity (built 1966) and the 122,000-dwt Juneau (built 1974) who revealed that illegal ocean dumping happened with some frequency on the company’s ships.
A US court awarded $2.1m to an OMI third engineer – half the $4.2m penalty imposed on the company – earlier this week – so whistleblowing may be emerging as an attractive alternative to entering a lottery for seafarers who want to become rich.
The court was told the whistleblowers risked their careers with Sabine and within the industry by coming forward and so deserved a statutory reward.
“This case should send a message that polluting our environment and lying to the government will not be tolerated,” said assistant attorney general Tom Sansonetti.
Sabine admitted it deliberately dumped waste oil, sludge, and oily mixtures from the Trinity and Juneau as well as the 37,276-dwt Sea Princess, (built 1972) and the 31,081-dwt Colorado (built 1994) without the use of the required pollution prevention equipment.
The deliberate discharges were then concealed in false oil record books in which all overboard discharges must be accurately recorded.
Sabine also admitted that, on a significant number of occasions the company falsified oil record books and deliberately dumped oily wastes from other vessels in its fleet.
The Department of Justice said Sabine had illegally dumping thousands of gallons of waste oil, hundreds of tons of diesel-contaminated grain, and plastic wastes at sea.
Two members of the Trinity crew told the US Coast Guard of the illegal dumping of contaminated diesel fuel when the vessel arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, in June 1998.
A Juneau crew member then blew the whistle at Portland, Oregon, in March 1999 revealing that hundreds of tons of diesel contaminated wheat had been dumped into the ocean.
In addition to the fine Sabine was put on three years probation by Judge Bennett
The Justice Department announced in February that it would “aggressively pursue” indictments against the owner of Sabine Transportation, Rick D Stickle, as well as five of his senior staff for conspiring to dump 442 tonnes of oil saturated wheat from the Juneau into the South China Sea during a voyage to Portland, Oregon.
Others named in the indictment were Sabine president, Michael R Reeve;operations vice president, John Karayannides; port engineer, Michael M Krider; George K McKay, master of the Juneau and chief officer, Philip J Hitchens.
The charges carry possible penalties of up to five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 per count.
Last year, Sabine pleaded guilty to a violation of the Clean Water Act by the dumping of hundreds of tons of rust scale, tank cleaning wastes, and other oily wastes into the Mississippi during a tank cleaning operation.
