Clipper Shipping, a subsidiary of the Norwegian group Solvang, has been found guilty of pollution by a court in the Southern District of Texas in the United States. The company has been ordered to pay a fine of $1.5 million, equivalent to nearly 900 million CFA francs, for illegally discharging oily bilge water from the tanker Clipper Saturn near Togolese waters in 2021.
According to information provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, the ship’s chief engineer illegally transferred oily bilge water to the greywater tank before discharging it directly overboard near the coast of Lomé, Togo.
The illegal discharges were discovered during an inspection of the vessel by the U.S. Coast Guard in Houston on October 28, 2021. The chief engineer had taken measures to conceal his actions by removing a section of piping and installing an additional hose to facilitate the discharge of the polluted water. Subsequently, the crew reinstalled and repainted the piping to conceal any evidence of suspicious activity.
U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani of the Southern District of Texas condemned the actions of Clipper Saturn, stating, “Not only did this vessel pollute waterways, but they tried to hide it. To put it simply, Clipper Saturn wanted to get rid of the dirty, oily water from their vessel. Instead of properly filtering out the hazardous elements, as required, they decided to cut costs and simply dump all the contaminated mess into the sea. Unfortunately for them, they got caught when they docked in Houston.”
In addition to the fine of nearly 900 million CFA francs imposed by the U.S. court, Clipper Shipping AS will also face further sanctions on an international level. “We take the illegal discharge of oily bilge water at sea and the falsification of records to hinder the ability of the United States to investigate these discharges very seriously,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
It is worth noting that the Republic of Togo, where the polluting discharges took place, has not yet responded to this significant penalty imposed on the company for its harmful actions to the Togolese coastal environment.
