Lawyer Sanders says M/V Windsor Castle busted for dumping oil sludge into U.S. Waters and lied about it.

According to the plea agreements in the case, the M/V Windsor Castle arrived at port in Houston, Texas and was boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guard inspectors learned that the vessel’s chief engineer had ordered crew members to dump oil sludge and bilge wastes into the ocean and had falsified the ship’s oil record book to conceal these discharges. Coast Guard inspectors discovered and seized the bypass hose and pipes used to dump the oil sludge, bilge waste, and contaminated ballast water overboard.

International and U.S. law prohibit the discharge of waste oil without treatment by a device known as an oil water separator. The law also requires that all of the oil transferred onto, off of, or between tanks within a ship be recorded in an oil record book so all the oil on a ship can be accounted for when the ship is inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The court fined BNSMS $1,200,000 and ordered the company to make a $300,000 community service payment to the congressionally-established National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of fish, wildlife, and plants and the habitat on which they depend.

The district court also placed BNSMS on three years of probation during which it must implement and follow a stringent environmental compliance program that includes a court-appointed monitor and auditing of BNSMS’ ships for compliance with environmental laws.