Americas News
German Vessel Operator Indicted in U.S. Over Alleged Great Lakes Pollution
U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger, for the Department of Justice in the District of Minnesota, May 11 announced that Germany's MST Mineralien Schiffahrt Spedition und Transport GmbH (MST), which operates M/V Cornelia, has been charged with failing to maintain accurate ship records on the disposal of oil-contaminated waste and with presenting falsified records to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG).
As Ship & Bunker reported in December, the general cargo ship Cornelia was expected to be trapped in the Great Lakes by impending winter ice if not released from legal detention resulting from a pollution investigation by authorities in Duluth, Minnesota on Lake Superior.
The Department of Justice says that documents filed in court suggest that from February 2015 to October 2015, Cornelia "experienced significant leakages of oily waste-water," accumulating a large amount of machinery space bilge water in the process.
It is alleged that on at least 10 occasions during the period, Cornelia's Chief Engineer and/or Second Engineer told members of the engine room crew to move machinery space bilge water from the dirty bilge tank to the clean bilge tank.
Further, it is alleged that on at least one occasion, in approximately May 2015, machinery space bilge water from the vessel was moved to the clean bilge tank before being discharged overboard into the waters of the Great Lakes.
The Department of Justice says that on each occasion where oily waste-water was transferred internally before being discharged into the waster, the Chief Engineer knowingly failed to record the transfers and subsequent discharges in the ship's Oil Record Book (ORB).
USCG staff are said to have begun their investigation on November 5, 2015, when the vessel called at the Port of Duluth to load a cargo of grain intended for transport to Africa.
