After an engineer aboard the Caribbean Princess discovered that the cruise ship was illegally dumping 4,000 gallons of oil waste off the coast of England via a "magic pipe" and tipped the British MCA, Princess Cruise Lines faced seven federal charges concerning an illegal ocean pollution case.
After investigating, authorities learned that this cruise ship has been doing this illegal activity and other illegal practices in waste-dumping since 2005, disheartening many when they heard the news. Princess Cruise Lines is a subsidiary of Carnival, the world's leading cruise ship company.
The Princess Cruise Lines have pleaded guilty to all these charges and must pay around $40M in criminal penalty. According to justice.gov, this amount is the highest penalty ever to be given in an ocean pollution case, and when it's approved by a Miami judge, close to 15$ million will be given to several international maritime conservation community projects in Florida and the UK.
Thorough investigating also showed that four other Princess Ships have been doing the same thing, and aside from the "magic pipe" that tricks pollution-prevention tools onboard, these ships also use clean ocean water to hide their dumping of contaminated bilge water, which should be detected by onboard sensors.
In a press statement, Princess Cruise Lines said, "Although we had policies and procedures in place it became apparent they were not fully effective. We are very sorry that this happened and have taken additional steps to ensure we meet or exceed all environmental requirements."
This is not the first time a cruise line company has been fined in concern with environmental issues. In 2002, Carnival and the Norwegian Cruise Line has also pleaded guilty to felonies involving illegal discharge of oil waste in the sea, raking in $18 million in fines for Carnival, and $1,500,000 for NCL.
John Cruden, assistant attorney general for the US justice department's environmental division and Jeremy Smart, head of enforcement at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, both said in statements that "this case will send a clear message to the entire cruise line industry, that this kind of pollution practice will not be tolerated anywhere in the world"
According to the environmental non-profit organization Friends of the Earth (FOE), Princess Cruise and its host company Carnival have both been given a "D" and "C" in the FEO environmental report card.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
