Dumping by tanker nets record fine

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
As the tanker Uranus was leaving the port of Boston one night in April 2002, the chief engineer got into a "shouting match" with a worker and threatened to fire him if he didn't craft a makeshift device that would allow the ship to covertly dump thousands of gallons of oily sludge into the ocean.

In a secret journal, the worker detailed how he made the pipe to bypass the ship's filtering system and watched as it was used to pump "slop" into the water. He noted that his bosses knew it was prohibited, but "since I came on board, they are doing this all times."
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(snip)
Under the settlement, OSG will pay the nation's largest-ever criminal penalty involving deliberate pollution by vessels, admitting that since 2001 nine of its tankers intentionally discharged oil waste off the coast of Nantucket, Cape Cod, Maine, North Carolina, California, and in the Gulf of Mexico; and that another three vessels falsified logs to conceal pollution.
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(snip)
Yesterday, federal officials cited the worker's revelations in court records as they announced that the owner of the tanker, New York-based Overseas Shipholding Group Inc., or OSG, will pay a record $37 million fine and plead guilty to criminal charges for letting its fleet illegally dump oil waste in waters from Maine to California, including off Cape Cod, then falsifying records to cover its tracks.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/20/dumping_by_tanker_nets_record_fine/

$37M hardly seems like a significant deterant to the "the world's largest publicly traded tanker company".

[acmavm]

1. And don't count that money until its paid either. Exxon has yet to

pay for the spill caused from the tanker Valdez. They claim they can't afford it.

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Sludge discharges from Uranus. I couldn't help it. n/t

[Tempest]

3. OSG had gross revenues of $1 billion in 2005 & profits of $664 million

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=OSG