For all the landlubbers who think that ships are polluting the oceans, well I’m afraid that in some cases they are right, unfortunately.
I just read about another case of the “magic pipe” being discovered on a ship by the US Coastguard in Tampa, Florida. A magic pipe is a home made pipe used to bypass the oily water separator and to pump the oily water over the side into the ocean. Some ship operators seem to think that it is cheaper to pollute the ocean than to use the equipment fitted onboard to separate the oily water, and in this case the company had ordered their engineers to routinely dump oily water over the side.
Every ship has a log of all oil filling and transfer, even oily water, but these logs had been deliberately falsified so the illegal oil dumping could take place.
So how did they get caught? They had covered up their tracks, faked the records, and removed the magic pipe before arriving in Tampa.
Someone onboard blew the whistle, and tipped off the authorities, so the USCG came onboard and found what they needed to hold the ship and make arrests. Two Filipino citizens now face up to 6 years in prison and fines of $250,000. They carried out the act so they carry the can, but they were ordered to carry out the deed by their company in Japan, or probably lose their job, so lose job or go to jail….magic! They have 6 years to think about what they did.
And the whistle blower? He gets a hefty reward, probably more than he’d earn in a year. Maybe he might think about his shipmates in jail?
And the company, hardly a cheap alternative…not so magic really.
And the magic pipes? They will magically appear again on some other ship, carrying flat screen TV’s or cars or oil or whatever…….
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Hi Tim,
Nice article (like always). However, you really think that the “whistleblower” will receive some kind of reward from USCG? Is that a common practice? Difficult topic…
Let’s imagine a 3rd mate on a tanker is aware of the fact that the ship’s slop, residues, etc. is discharged over board illegally and that constantly, what kind of possibilities does he have? Close his eyes?! For me that would be a hard call…
Best regards,
tamara
Hi Tamara,
Thanks for the comment.
If you follow the following link there is a case of a reward of $300,000 being paid out by the USCG, but they fined the owner 3 million so no problem funding the reward scheme.
http://url.ie/wq1
I don’t think that tankers are involved too often in this kind of thing, usually other cargo ships as far as I have read.
I’m not that keen on whistle blowing but I haven’t been put in a situation where I’d ever think about it. Sometimes it’s easier to ignore shit, but if you are getting 300 grand, well you’d probably think about it!