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PA NEW ENGLAND OIL SPILL RESULTS IN $9.5 MILLION PLEA AGREEMENT
Release Date: 10/03/97
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1997
NEW ENGLAND OIL SPILL RESULTS IN $9.5 MILLION PLEA AGREEMENT
On Sept. 25, Eklof Marine Corp., of Staten Island, N.Y.; its subsidiaries Thor Towing Corp. and Odin Marine Corp.; Eklof’s President, Leslie Wallin of Mountainside, New Jersey; and Gregory Aitken of West Islip New York, captain of the tug Scandia; all agreed to plead guilty to federal and Rhode Island state criminal charges. The charges arose from a spill of 826,000 gallons of home heating oil from the oil barge North Cape. The spill, which caused significant damage to marine creatures and wildlife, took place when the barge ran aground while it was being towed by the Scandia in a storm off Matunuck, R.I., on Jan. 19, 1996. In the federal plea agreements, Eklof, Thor, Odin, and Wallin admitted that both the tug and the barge were improperly equipped to safely navigate stormy waters that day. The agreement calls for the companies to pay a $3.5 million federal fine, a $3.5 million state fine and $1.5 million to the Nature Conservancy to buy land for conservation purposes and to spend $1 million on remedial safety measures. When sentenced on the federal charges, Wallin and Aitken could be imprisoned for up to one year and/or be fined up to twice the cost of the losses caused by the spill. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI, the Coast Guard Investigative Services, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
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