Cargo Business Newswire

Thursday, March 5, 2015

AML Ship Management pleads guilty to dumping oil waste

A German shipping company pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of dumping oily waste last year in U.S. waters south of the Aleutian Islands.

The City of Tokyo, a ship that was transporting vehicles from Asia to the West Coast last year, was the focus of the violation.

The guilty pleas were filed in federal court this month by attorney Michael Chalos on behalf of AML Ship Management GMBH at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

The City of Tokyo, operated by AML, pumped about

4,500 gallons of oily bilge water directly overboard, according to court documents. To send the waste into the ocean, crewmembers used a makeshift hose system that bypassed the oil-water separator that is legally mandated for large ships.

The dumping and subsequent falsifying of ship records merited criminal counts under the Clean Water Act and the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

For more of the Alaska Dispatch News story: www.adn.com