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Princess Fine to be 40 Million


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April 20 (UPI) -- A federal judge imposed a $40 million fine on Princess Cruise Lines for intentionally polluting the ocean and placed the Carnival Corporation subsidiary on probation for five years, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/04/20/Princess-Cruise-Lines-fined-40M-for-intentionally-polluting-ocean/8681492698987/

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April 20 (UPI) -- A federal judge imposed a $40 million fine on Princess Cruise Lines for intentionally polluting the ocean and placed the Carnival Corporation subsidiary on probation for five years, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/04/20/Princess-Cruise-Lines-fined-40M-for-intentionally-polluting-ocean/8681492698987/

 

 

This was posted last year.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2428028&highlight=Princess+fines

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Something was announced today because this is the third time I've heard it mentioned today.

 

I missed the original dicussion because I was traveling, but I was saddened/angry/shocked to hear what was happening on a Princess ship. (Hopefully just one!). I would think that Princess has to be extremely concerned about losing the privilege of cruising in Glacier Bay, and would not be surprised if that does happen.

 

Here's a link from one of today's articles. It does state Princess was officially sentenced just yesterday.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tourism/princess-cruises-sentenced-to-pay-40-million-fine-for-pollution-scheme/2321062

Princess Cruises ordered to pay $40 million fine for pollution scheme

 

Tampabay.com - 11h ago

 

 

In August of that year, an engineer on the ship recorded with his cell phone as supervising engineers on the 3,142-passenger Caribbean Princess instructed workers to bypass the ship's filtration system in an effort to avoid the costs of properly ...

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Come on people, it's pretty simple. Princess reached an agreement last year with the Justice Department. A federal judge still has to review and approve these agreements. Today the judge smacked down the gavel and formally approved this one.

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April 20 (UPI) -- A federal judge imposed a $40 million fine on Princess Cruise Lines for intentionally polluting the ocean and placed the Carnival Corporation subsidiary on probation for five years, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/04/20/Princess-Cruise-Lines-fined-40M-for-intentionally-polluting-ocean/8681492698987/

 

This should also mean that they lose their spots in Glacier Bay according to the Glacier Bay permit rules. That would cost them more than 40 million in revenue. Want to bet that this will not happen, especially now.

 

DON

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And stock price is all that matters to too many people.

 

So long as Wall Street can make money on Carnival stock + OBC, it's a case of forgive and forget. Get with the program now. That's how things roll in this world.

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Something was announced today because this is the third time I've heard it mentioned today.

 

I missed the original dicussion because I was traveling, but I was saddened/angry/shocked to hear what was happening on a Princess ship. (Hopefully just one!). I would think that Princess has to be extremely concerned about losing the privilege of cruising in Glacier Bay, and would not be surprised if that does happen.

 

Here's a link from one of today's articles. It does state Princess was officially sentenced just yesterday.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tourism/princess-cruises-sentenced-to-pay-40-million-fine-for-pollution-scheme/2321062

Princess Cruises ordered to pay $40 million fine for pollution scheme

 

Tampabay.com - 11h ago

 

 

In August of that year, an engineer on the ship recorded with his cell phone as supervising engineers on the 3,142-passenger Caribbean Princess instructed workers to bypass the ship's filtration system in an effort to avoid the costs of properly ...

 

I am pretty sure that the penalty was announced last year was the guilty plea and the agreement to the fine between the company and the prosecutor. The current announcement being the formal approval of the previously negotiated agreement by the judge presiding over the case.

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Some of us are more interested in damage to wildlife, the sea and the environment by Princess Cruises action rather than what happens to stocks and shares.

 

Totally agree. I was very disappointed to read about this. Somehow it escaped my attention in the past.

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Let me start by saying I am an avid cruiser having been on far more then 100 cruises..of 14 lines. We have been Elite with Princess for a long time and it remains one of our current favorite lines. This pollution situation is simply outrageous. And what is even more outrageous is that its resolved by paying a simple fine...which in a sense, is paid by stockholders (me) and passengers. The only way this kind of criminal activity can be stopped is to start tossing some of these Senior Officers in prison! The Chief Engineer who apparently orchestrated this crime should lose his license and be sentenced to living in a cess pool of the same type of sludge he ordered pumped overboard! The Captain should also be striped of his Masters License and sentenced to a life ashore. And if anyone at corporate was aware of this crime...they should immediately be terminated to never again work in the industry.

 

What I find really shocking is that cruise lines will tell you that they really stress keeping the environment clean. Cruise ships have Environmental Officers (they are in very Senior positions) who are responsible to the Captain (and company) to assure compliance with appropriate international standards. We know an environmental officer on Celebrity who can talk your ear off about all the checks and balances that are in place to prevent this kind of crime! And yet it still happens, companies pay a relatively small fine...top executives still get their bonuses.....and life goes on. Very sad. Kudos to the one junior officer who had the guts to blow the whistle on this illegal activity.

 

Hank:(

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Without doing anything illegal, due to the high sulphur heavy fuel oil they burn, large cruise ships produce a mind boggling amount of pollution. A large cruise ship emits the equivalent amount of:

Sulphur dioxide - 376 million cars

Particle emissions - 1.05 million cars

NOx - 421,153 cars

CO2 - 83,678 cars

Source: Nabu/Axel Friedrich 2012

 

If you divide the number of cars by 7500 (no. of pax on the largest cruise ship) and assume one person per car, you will see the ship emits 50,133 times as much sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere as a car does per person per mile traveled. In other words, for every mile you cruise, you are responsible for the same amount of sulphur dioxide emissions as driving your car 50,000 miles! :eek:

 

If you cruise, but drive a Prius because you want to 'save the planet', you can assuage your conscience with the fact you'll probably only have to drive it 35,000 miles to produce the same amount of sulphur dioxide pollution. :rolleyes:

 

We (passengers) are all 'guilty' of pollution.

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And what is even more outrageous is that its resolved by paying a simple fine...which in a sense, is paid by stockholders (me) and passengers. The only way this kind of criminal activity can be stopped is to start tossing some of these Senior Officers in prison! The Chief Engineer who apparently orchestrated this crime should lose his license...

 

...And yet it still happens, companies pay a relatively small fine...top executives still get their bonuses.....and life goes on. Very sad. Kudos to the one junior officer who had the guts to blow the whistle on this illegal activity.

Could not agree more and the same words were said in our house just yesterday. If Princess holds onto its Glacier Bay permits after 2019 I will be very suspicious about what kinds of incentives are exchanging hands and whose hands they are.

 

This is a travesty and if other ships and lines are doing it too, then those are travesties also. I have to respect the companies I do business with and this has caused me to question my loyalty to Princess and the cruise industry in general.

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Could not agree more and the same words were said in our house just yesterday. If Princess holds onto its Glacier Bay permits after 2019 I will be very suspicious about what kinds of incentives are exchanging hands and whose hands they are.

 

This is a travesty and if other ships and lines are doing it too, then those are travesties also. I have to respect the companies I do business with and this has caused me to question my loyalty to Princess and the cruise industry in general.

 

Concerning the Glacier Bay contract - not necessarily. The current government contracting rule (2016) indicates that felony convictions only impact contracts for a two year period.

 

While this says DOS, GSA and NASA it also impacts the other agencies.

The rule instructs the DoD, GSA and NASA not to issue awards to contractors who disclose a felony conviction or federal tax liability unless the agency has considered suspension or debarment of the corporation and has made a determination that this further action is not necessary to protect the interests of the government. Government contractors who have had felony convictions or delinquent tax matters should take proactive steps now to make their case for consideration to suspension and debarment officials before making certifications.

So it might be possible that the two year period might be over before the contract competition. If not you still might get the determination that further action is not necessary to protect the interests of the government.

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Let me start by saying I am an avid cruiser having been on far more then 100 cruises..of 14 lines. We have been Elite with Princess for a long time and it remains one of our current favorite lines. This pollution situation is simply outrageous. And what is even more outrageous is that its resolved by paying a simple fine...which in a sense, is paid by stockholders (me) and passengers. The only way this kind of criminal activity can be stopped is to start tossing some of these Senior Officers in prison! The Chief Engineer who apparently orchestrated this crime should lose his license and be sentenced to living in a cess pool of the same type of sludge he ordered pumped overboard! The Captain should also be striped of his Masters License and sentenced to a life ashore. And if anyone at corporate was aware of this crime...they should immediately be terminated to never again work in the industry.

 

What I find really shocking is that cruise lines will tell you that they really stress keeping the environment clean. Cruise ships have Environmental Officers (they are in very Senior positions) who are responsible to the Captain (and company) to assure compliance with appropriate international standards. We know an environmental officer on Celebrity who can talk your ear off about all the checks and balances that are in place to prevent this kind of crime! And yet it still happens, companies pay a relatively small fine...top executives still get their bonuses.....and life goes on. Very sad. Kudos to the one junior officer who had the guts to blow the whistle on this illegal activity.

 

Hank:(

 

Well said.

 

Just wondering, does anyone know how Carnival corporate treated the junior officer who was the whistleblower? Whistleblowers are supposed to be protected from retaliation, but we all know that is not always true.

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Without doing anything illegal, due to the high sulphur heavy fuel oil they burn, large cruise ships produce a mind boggling amount of pollution. A large cruise ship emits the equivalent amount of:

Sulphur dioxide - 376 million cars

Particle emissions - 1.05 million cars

NOx - 421,153 cars

CO2 - 83,678 cars

Source: Nabu/Axel Friedrich 2012

 

If you divide the number of cars by 7500 (no. of pax on the largest cruise ship) and assume one person per car, you will see the ship emits 50,133 times as much sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere as a car does per person per mile traveled. In other words, for every mile you cruise, you are responsible for the same amount of sulphur dioxide emissions as driving your car 50,000 miles! :eek:

 

If you cruise, but drive a Prius because you want to 'save the planet', you can assuage your conscience with the fact you'll probably only have to drive it 35,000 miles to produce the same amount of sulphur dioxide pollution. :rolleyes:

 

We (passengers) are all 'guilty' of pollution.

 

While I dispute some of these numbers, which I believe all come from one German environmental group's study, one thing everyone needs to realize. While cruise ships are "discretionary" voyages (they are not required for your life), know that all cruise ships together amount to less than 5% of all the world's shipping, and 75% of the entire world's economy travels by sea, and all of those ships burn the same residual fuel that cruise ships burn. So, to make a real difference in the environment, you would have to do without 75% of your food, shelter, and consumer goods.

 

Secondly, you need to understand what residual fuel is. Most refineries around the world extract as much gasoline and diesel fuel as possible from a barrel of crude oil, but about two thirds of them can only refine down to where there is a thick, gluey, black oil left, and this is what residual fuel is, and amounts to about 1/4-1/3 of each barrel of crude. These refineries can do nothing more with the residual fuel, except to sell it as fuel oil for ships. Newer refineries can refine crude down into light distillates until only a dense solid (coke) is left, extracting 98% of the crude oil. These refineries are very expensive, and many developing countries do not have the capital to invest in upgrading their older refineries. So, refineries are left with either doing nothing with 1/3 of each barrel of crude, or shipping it at a cost to another, newer refinery, or selling it as ship's fuel. The first two solutions would lead to higher fuel costs.

 

What does a refinery do with the sulfur removed from various products to meet emissions standards? They incinerate it, so it is really entering the atmosphere anyway, though potentially in a better compound.

 

Thirdly, the IMO has taken the problem in hand, and several countries as well. These countries have established Emissions Control Areas (ECA) where the sulfur content of ship's fuel is strictly regulated, typically to 0.1% sulfur (opposed to the worldwide limit of 3.5%) and these areas are the US (all of North America), the Baltic, and the North Sea, all EU ports (while in port), with the Med working on an agreement. Also, the IMO has established a goal of reducing the worldwide sulfur limits to 1% by 2020.

 

Many ships, in order to meet the ECA requirements are installing exhaust gas scrubbers, which will allow them to meet the emissions levels of low sulfur diesel fuel, while still burning high sulfur residual fuel. These scrubbers can cost $1-1.5 million per engine, with 5-6 engines per cruise ship. The payback period on these investments can range from 5-10 years.

 

As for the consequences of the Princess fine, not only is there a monetary fine, but the corporate officers are declared convicted felons, and Princess has already moved to remove a good portion of the ship operations group that was responsible for the corporate culture. Because, while the Chief Engineer is truly responsible for his actions, and legally liable because of his license, no sailing engineer wakes up one morning and says "I know, I'll save the company a whole lot of money by pumping oily water over the side". Nope, it comes down from the top, where the company says "I understand the ship had a problem, and needs to get rid of oily water above what can be processed normally, but the barge to take the water to be processed ashore will come to the ship with the new Chief Engineer".

 

As for "whistleblower" protection, remember that the officer in question is not a US citizen, the ship is not a US ship, and even Carnival Corp is not a US corporation, so those US consumer protection laws don't necessarily apply.

 

As I stated in the original threads when this happened, I in no way condone what was done, the officer responsible was and should be punished, the penalty is consistent with others handed down over the years, but as someone who deals with these very issues every day of my working life, I have a different perspective on it.

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Well said.

 

Just wondering, does anyone know how Carnival corporate treated the junior officer who was the whistleblower? Whistleblowers are supposed to be protected from retaliation, but we all know that is not always true.

Also just wondering what happened to the officers directly involved . I'm also not sure if this was confined to one ship and why they did this . What was their motivation ?

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