NOKA Shipping Exposed, Fined & Banned for Concealing Hazardous Materials:

Noka Shipping has been sentenced and fined a total of $900,000 in sentence fees, fines and community service payments this week after failing to inform the US Coast Guard of the hazardous materials present on board the M/V Florin and concealing its pollution discharges. Their guilty plea to the violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships also led to all Noka owned or managed vessels to be barred from all U.S Ports and waters for 5 years. 

Ignacia S. Moreno, from the Department of Justice said of the crime “senior officers allowed hazardous conditions to prevail aboard the M/V Florin and maintained false records that concealed the deliberate discharge of oily waste into the ocean in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships”.

It was argued in the joint factual statement that between the months of June and September 2010 the vessel’s senior engineering officers had oily bilge waste pumped directly into the sea through the fixed piping system and fire main pump, completely bypassing the pollution prevention equipment.

The $900,000 fine is split into a $750,000 criminal fine, and a $150,000 community service payment to go to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, with specific use in the Flower Garden and Stetson Banks National Marine Sanctuary in Texas. Jose Angel Moreno, a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas said of the crime “It is more than disheartening to see companies knowingly and purposely dumping oil-contaminated waste into those resources; it violates the law. We take those violations seriously and shipping companies will be held accountable.”

Failure to account for hazardous materials on board vessels is now taken very seriously across the world, and in this case it has cost Noka greatly.

Source: Lucion Marine. 13 June 2011

http://www.greenpassport.net/noka-shipping-exposed-fined-and-banned-for-concealing-pollution/