Accidents

Violating Pollution Prevention Act United States Attorney George E.B. Holding announced that in federal court, May 3, Vaja Sikharulidze, a citizen of Georgia, pled guilty before United States District Judge James C. Dever, III to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, in violation of Title 33, United States Code, Sections 1901, et. seq. A Criminal Information was filed on April 23.Sikharulidze, 59, was the Chief Engineer of the Motor Tanker Chem Faros, a 21,145 gross-ton ocean-going cargo ship. The ship was operated by Cooperative Success Maritime SA and regularly transported cargo between various ports in Asia and the United States, to include Morehead City, N.C.Consistent with requirements in the APPS regulations, a vessel other than an oil tanker, must maintain a record known as an Oil Record Book in which transfer and disposal of all oil-contaminated waste and the discharge overboard and disposal otherwise of such waste, must be fully and accurately recorded by the person in charge of the operations. Oil-contaminated bilge waste can be discharged overboard if it is processed through on-board pollution prevention equipment known as the Oily Water Separator, which is used to separate the water from the oil and other wastes, and the...