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May 2005 27 Circle 210 on Reader Service Card ted is accurate: • During a three-year period, Evergreen discharged waste oil and sludge through bypass equipment and without the use of required pollution prevention equipment from certain ships, with the knowledge that this pol- lution violated international law; Evergreen concealed illegal dis- charges in order to prevent discovery by the U.S. Coast Guard through methods that included creating fictitious Oil Record Books and destroying a bypass pipe in anticipation of a Coast Guard inspection; Evergreen made false statements to the Coast Guard about the operation of the oily water separator and certain engine room officers instructed crew members that if questioned by the Coast Guard they should deny any knowledge of such unlawful activities. Four related Evergreen companies - Evergreen Marine (Taiwan), Evergreen America, Greencompass Marine, S.A., and Evergreen International, S.A. - will be bound by a detailed Environmental Compliance Plan to prevent future vio- lations as a condition of probation. Under the terms of the proposed plan, Evergreen will need to secure every overboard valve and flange with num- bered tags and make other hardware changes to make bypassing more diffi- cult. The compliance plan also requires that Evergreen ships visiting the United States be audited by an outside firm that will be reviewed by a special court appointed monitor. Ship's Engineer Jailed in Dumping Case The chief engineer the M/V Katerina — Edgardo A. Guinto, 49 — was sen- tenced to eight months in federal jail for his conviction on obstruction of justice charges in connection with his role in the bypass of the ship's oily water sepa- rator. Guinto pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge in January, admitting that he allowed the bypassing of the oil- water separator on the Katerina, that he instructed crew members to remove and conceal the bypass pipe when the ship came into Long Beach, and that he made fraudulent entries in the ship's Oil Record Book. The captain of the Katerina, Ioannis Kallikis, 65, of Athens, Greece, pleaded guilty in February to an obstruction of justice charge. By pleading guilty, Kallikis admitted that he acted corruptly and with the intent to impede a Coast Guard investigation into pollution viola- tions by advising other crew members that officials of the operator of the ship wanted the crew to destroy the incrimi- nating telexes. The operator of the Katerina, DST Shipping, Inc. of Thessaloniki, Greece, pleaded guilty to two felony charges related to this water pollution case. DST pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and failing to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book. DST was sentenced to probation, during which time its ships will be subject to special scrutiny. The company also paid a $1 million fine. Katerina is a Maltese-flagged, 600-ft., 16,320-ton cargo ship that arrived at the Port of Long Beach on September 10 MariSan Wastewater System Marine Environmental Partners, Inc. (MEP) designs and manufactures MariSan ballast and wastewater treat- ment systems that are designed to be ecologically safe and user-efficient. The MariSan wastewater system inte- grates a proprietary ionized air system (IONZ) that is designed to enhance and improve coagulation and disinfection processes to lower TSS and pathogens, and as part of an advanced oxidation process, also lowers BOD levels in treat- ed wastewaters. The ballast water sys- tem incorporates IONZ into a process system approach to eliminate more than 95 percent of invasive aquatic species, harmful bacteria and viruses. MariSan systems are fully automatic. Circle 29 on Reader Service Card Ensolve Wins Contract EnSolve Biosystems won a contract option by the U.S. Navy to develop a biological treatment system to remove petroleum products from decommis- sioned ships prior to disposal. The Phase II SBIR grant calls for EnSolve to design a prototype system that can be used to treat the wash water generated during the cleaning process. The system would be based on EnSolve's patented biotechnology process, which uses natu- rally occurring microbes to consume emulsified and other hydrocarbon-based wastes in the water to meet regulatory standards for discharge. Circle 30 on Reader Service Card Marine Environment MR MAY 2005 #4 (25-32).qxd 5/3/2005 10:35 AM Page 27
