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Sabine Transportation Fined for Ocean Dumping
Release Date: 08/18/2004
Contact Information:
Contact: Christopher Lagan 202-564-7338 / lagan.christopher@epa.gov
(08/18/04) Sabine Transportation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been sentenced to pay a $2 million fine for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Shipping (APPS). The court also ordered that $1 million of the fine be declared a bounty and shared by three whistle-blowers from the crews of the SS Juneau and SS Trinity. Sabine operates a fleet of ships that carry cargo from the United States to foreign countries. In its guilty plea, Sabine admitted to several violations including: discharging diesel fuel-contaminated wheat into the Pacific Ocean from the S.S. Juneau, discharging plastic wastes and oily diesel fuel cargo from the S.S. Trinity into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as failing to maintain required records and discharging oily waste from the S.S. Colorado, S.S. Guadalupe and S.S. Sea Princess. Dumping oil and other wastes into the open seas can harm fish and other aquatic life. The sentence was handed down in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa in Cedar Rapids. The case was investigated by the St. Louis office of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Coast Guard and the FBI. It was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cedar Rapids and the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
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