$9m fine for polluting Caribbean
The world's second-largest cruise company, Royal Caribbean agreed in a pre-trial bargain with prosectors to pay $9 million in fines and pleaded guilty to eight charges.
The company said its crews routinely pumped oily bilge, kept dummy logs, and broke down illegal sewage pipes bypassing cleaning devices as part of a conspiracy to hide the illegal practices.
Most of the fines, $8 million, will be paid in Puerto Rico to settle charges there, while $1 million will be paid in Florida. A portion of the fines, $1 million, will be contributed to a conservation fund.
The company also agreed to five years probation and to implement a court-supervised programme to improve its handling of oil wastes, chemicals and other pollutants. Staff training, formation of a directors group on pollution and quarterly reporting will be part of the programme, court papers said.
Royal Caribbean remains under investigation and may be subject to other environmental charges, prosecutors and the company said.
``These acts were totally inexcusable,'' Royal Caribbean President Jack Williams told a U.S. District Court judge. ``They should not have happened, and the Corporation accepts full responsibility.''
Royal Caribbean is now assigning an environmental watchdog to each of its ships, hired an environmental compliance executive, and appointed to its board of directors former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly, the company said.
Prosecutors said the dumping was detected in October, 1994, by a high-tech U.S. Coast Guard plane in the Caribbean that identified a seven-mile oily wake behind Royal Caribbean's Nordic Empress.
Prosectors declined to say how much waste was dumped by Royal Caribbean ships between 1990 and 1994 but quoted estimates that 80 percent of oil pollution of the world's seas was caused by such routine actions by ships.
They declined to say whether they were investigating other cruise operators.
@ REUTERS.
- MICHAEL CONNOR
