Whistleblowers Get $5.2 Million In Record Ocean Dumping Verdict 

Twelve whistleblower crew members were each awarded $437,500 � a total of $5.25 million � as part of a $37 million settlement, the largest ever involving deliberate ocean pollution from ships. The company, one of the world�s largest publicly-traded oil tanker firms, agreed to the settlement for violations in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Wilmington, NC and Portland, ME. The company pleaded guilty to various charges of systematically dumping thousands of gallons of sludge and waste oil into the ocean and deliberately altering logbooks to conceal the illegal discharge. The violations came to light after the whistleblowers were outraged by the systematic dumping, prosecutors said. In one case, a fitter allegedly was threatening with firing if he did not make a bypass pipe to facilitate the polluting. He responded by keeping a secret record of the dates of the oil discharges, prosecutors said. Another whistleblower, an engineer, called a Coast Guard hotline to report that ship officers were �tricking� an oil sensor by flushing it with fresh water. The charges covered a pattern of actions stretching over five years, from 2001 to 2006.