ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE
MSC Shipmanagement and vessel owner plead guilty in Philadelphia to Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships violations
Two international shipping companies were sentenced Aug. 28 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to a combined $1.75 million fine and four years of probation for concealing discharges of oily waste at sea.
MSC Shipmanagement Limited, which operates the motor vessel MSC Samira III, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. The vessel’s owner, Hong Kong Spirit Shipping and Trading Limited, pleaded guilty to the same two counts. The conduct covered June 2024 through January 2025.
Second Engineer Mikhail Tsurikov previously pleaded guilty to an APPS violation and is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 10.
Prosecutors said senior engine-room officers directed illegal overboard discharges of oily bilge waste and failed to record those discharges in the ship’s oil record book, as U.S. and international rules require. The crew later presented the false record book to the U.S. Coast Guard during two January 2025 calls at the Port of Philadelphia.
“Foreign vessels that enter the ports of the United States and present false documents undermine our efforts to preserve our environment and enforce the law,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Energy and Natural Resources Division. “We will vigorously protect the integrity of our port state control system against actors who put profit over compliance with the law.”
“These companies repeatedly cut corners and covered it up, befouling the marine environment,” said U.S. Attorney David Metcalf for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Their violations evidence both a disdain for our country’s laws and a clear case of greed. Shippers who illegally discharge pollutants and doctor their records will be prosecuted and held accountable.”
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Roberto Rivera,…
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By Eva Semel / Health and Wellness ReporterResearchers from Adelaide University and the University of Hong Kong say marine heatwaves should be given the same urgency as heatwaves on land. A new paper published in Nature Sustainability argues that these extreme ocean warming events pose a rising threat to human physical and mental health that has largely been overlooked.
The study outlines how prolonged periods of unusually high ocean temperatures trigger a cascade of effects that reach far beyond coral reefs and fisheries. Impacts range from intensifying extreme weather and reducing seafood supplies to increasing mental health challenges in coastal communities.
Lead author Dr Laura Falkenberg, from Adelaide University’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, said the environmental damage from marine heatwaves has long been recognized, yet their effects on people have received far less attention.
“Marine heatwaves are no longer just recognized as an environmental issue; they are increasingly also perceived as a human health issue,” Dr Falkenberg said.
“Our paper highlights that these events can influence people’s health in many different ways, both directly and indirectly. They can intensify storms and atmospheric heatwaves, affect the availability and safety of seafood, disrupt livelihoods and contribute to anxiety, grief and other mental health impacts in communities that depend on healthy oceans.”
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