SEATTLE — Two shipping companies and two engineers were indicted on charges of dumping 5,000 gallons of oily wastewater from a cargo ship and concealing it from the U.S. Coast Guard.
Federal prosecutors said Thursday that the cargo ship M/V Gallia Graeca released the contaminated water over several days in late October after the ship traveled from China to Seattle.
The ship’s operator, Angelakos (Hellas) is a Panama company and its owner, Gallia Greaca Shipping, is based in Cyprus.
Prosecutors say during the ship’s voyage, its oil-water filtering equipment was inoperable. The indictment says when the Coast Guard inspected the ship in November; the engineers ran the equipment in a way that made it appear it was working.
The companies and engineers were each charged with violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, falsifying records in a federal investigation an defrauding the government. Each count carries a prison term and a $500,000 fine.
