Ships Dumping Sludge At Sea
by Craig Welch, The Seattle Times
The shippers covered up the illegal dumping by ordering crew members to hide evidence, obtain fake waste-disposal receipts, paint over brackets used to bypass pollution controls — even lie to grand juries. One chief engineer pleaded guilty last month to discharging 20 tons of oily sludge on one voyage from Japan to Vancouver, Wash.
No one knows how often such discharges occur, but investigators say dumping is so common they may be just scratching the surface.
Last week a South Korean engineer surrendered to U.S. marshals, and another awaits sentencing in Tacoma in a case that goes to trial this month. The Department of Justice is investigating others.
David Uhlmann, the Justice Department's environmental-crimes chief in Washington, D.C., said the problem appears "so rampant and so pervasive within the maritime industry" that his agency has ramped up enforcement, prosecuting cases up and down both coasts.
"It suddenly seems like the more we look, the more we find, and we know we're being fooled a lot of the time," said Norm Davis, who oversees ship inspectors for the state Department of Ecology in Puget Sound.
At issue is how cargo and container ships deal with waste oil, solvents and lubricants that leak and accumulate in a ship's engine room. Typically, the water and oil are separated, and the oil is stored as sludge in a tank. Some ships burn the contaminated goo in on-board incinerators, while others store it until the ship docks, where it is off-loaded for proper disposal.
But on-board, separators and incinerators need careful maintenance, some brands break down, and some don't have enough processing capacity. Sludge can be expensive and take time to get rid of. Some ships install hoses to bypass pollution-control systems and pump the waste overboard.
It's impossible to gauge the environmental damage, but oil can kill fish, [one gallon of gasoline pollutes 250,000 gallons of water] mammals, birds and their offspring, and destroy plant life. Scientists contend even small spills in ecologically sensitive areas can cause long-term harm to marine life.
It's equally hard to determine how much oily waste is dumped. A large container ship traveling between Asia and the West Coast on average can produce about 1,000 gallons of toxic sludge. Crew members in several cases admitted they regularly dumped everything. Commercial vessels make roughly 6,100 trips in and out of Washington waters annually.
A National Academy of Sciences study estimated last year that ships worldwide generate 500 million gallons of this sludge. It assumed that roughly 5 percent of waste from the huge tankers was discharged illegally and that 15 percent generated by smaller ships was discharged illegally. The study concluded that 65 million gallons is dumped annually.
Washington inspectors suspect the study significantly underestimated the problem.
"I would say that (study) number is conservatively low, but the issue is can I prove it?" said Mike Watson, chief warrant officer with the Coast Guard in Seattle.
Still, the organization that represents cargo vessels in Washington waters argues that most shipping companies have too much to lose to commit such willful crimes.
"I really don't think it can be that common because of the liability, and reputations at stake," said Mike Moore, director of the Puget Sound Steamship Operators Association. "The guys I talk to regularly, they do not want to fool around with environmental issues. They've put a lot more emphasis on stewardship and procedures and don't want to cut any corners."
Moore, the former head of the Coast Guard in Seattle, acknowledged that until recently violators were rarely caught, and punishment rarely meant jail time. He said no documentation justifies painting the industry with a broad brush based on high-profile bad actors.
"What kind of corporate culture endorses that kind of activity? It doesn't make sense," he said. "That's why I don't think it's widespread."
But Jim Oesterle, criminal-enforcement counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle, said interviews with crew members who move from ship to ship suggest otherwise: "Those we've talked to said this was not aberrant behavior — it was viewed as accepted practice on other ships they've worked on," he said.
It is notoriously hard to catch crews illegally dumping sludge. Equipment is easily removed before ships come to shore. The only witnesses, typically, are crew members who are often unwilling to testify against employers. Those who do can face jail time, lose their jobs or be blackballed by the shipping community.
"Obtaining such testimony is challenging," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Chutkow wrote in a sentencing memo for one engineer. " 'Rogue' chief engineers who silently take the blame for limited, but easily provable, pollution-related crimes may be rewarded by employers once they return to their native countries."
Successful investigators, once aboard, typically spot small amounts of residual oil where it doesn't belong and ask why it's not reflected in the vessel's "oil record book," a log required by international law to track all oil use. Sometimes, they get lucky.
In an April 2002 Oregon case, a former crew member tipped off investigators with an e-mail and photographs of an illegal hose system. In a Washington case the same month, the Royal Canadian Air Force happened to pass over a ship and notice oil in its wake.
In an October 2002 case, the chemical tanker Kaede was about to off-load cargo from South Korea in Tacoma when a crewman turned on the vessel's sewage pump, accidentally forcing oil into Commencement Bay. Coast Guard inspectors boarded the ship and found an illegally fabricated hose system and a doctored log book.
Last Tuesday, that ship's chief engineer, Hyeong-Bin Jeong reported to U.S. marshals to begin his 6-month federal prison sentence. The Panama-based owner and Singapore-based ship operator agreed to pay $750,000 and submit its 14-ship fleet to inspections.
In Alaska, Boyang Marine and Boyang Ltd., which move refrigerated seafood on cargo ships, admitted last fall their entire 12-ship fleet had hidden illegal discharges for seven years. Assistant managers at corporate headquarters in South Korea obtained false waste-disposal receipts. Corporate officers ordered engineers to repaint well-used bolts that attached bypass hoses. They told a captain to instruct his crew to lie to a grand jury, according to a plea agreement.
Last fall, Boyang and two other companies agreed to pay $5 million in damages. A captain and chief engineer served six months in prison. Another engineer was sentenced to eight months. Several corporate managers and directors in South Korea were indicted and still are considered fugitives.
Moore, with the Steamship Operators, said that illegal discharges should be prosecuted but that oil-spill volumes have declined so much in the past decade that intentional dumping poses an insignificant environmental threat.
But Seth Tane, with the Oregon-based incinerator manufacturer Therm Tec, said once inspectors find a better way to track the problem, intentional dumping may dwarf accidental spills.
"Once calculating this stuff becomes more of a science, this will turn the shipping industry on its head," he said. "What you're seeing is the tip of the iceberg."
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