KODIAK, Alaska — The federal district court in Anchorage entered final judgment against three Kodiak, Alaska-based commercial fishing companies and their manager for multiple violations of the Clean Water Act, Wednesday.

The court entered default judgments against company manager Corey Potter and F/V Knot EZ LLC, Aleutian Tendering LLC, and Alaska Tendering Company LLC, and imposed a civil penalty of $1,182,265 for the violations.  

This environmental enforcement case was filed on October 24, 2024, by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Coast Guard against Corey Potter and three of his related companies. The case stems from the Coast Guard’s July 2022 discovery of the defendants’ practice of discharging oily bilge waste from the engine room of their fish tendering vessel, Knot EZ, into coastal waters while operating in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Engine room bilge is known to contain a mixture of fuel, lubricating oils, water, and other wastes. The Knot EZ is a U.S.-flagged fish tendering vessel homeported in Kodiak.

The defendants contracted with fish processing companies to ferry supplies to fishing vessels in Bristol Bay at the southeastern portion of the Bering Sea and then pick up and deliver loads of fish from those vessels to fish processing plants along the coast.

As alleged in the filed complaint, the Coast Guard discovered—when it responded to a distress call and oil spill as the Knot EZ was sinking at anchor in Kodiak Harbor—that the defendants had set up an illegal discharge system and were regularly pumping the vessel’s oily bilge waste overboard at sea on a daily or near daily basis to avoid suspending business operations and repairing the heavily leaking hull of the vessel. Upon discovery of the oil discharge in Kodiak Harbor and the degraded condition of the vessel, the Coast Guard, through its Captain of the Port order authority, determined that the vessel was a “substantial threat to the safety of the waterway and the marine environment” and was “not fit for service at sea.” Subsequent investigation identified a pattern of illegal oil discharges and related violations of the Coast Guard’s longstanding pollution control regulations throughout the summer fishing season. The vessel has been taken out of service and removed from the ocean.

In addition to the claim for illegal oily bilge discharges from the vessel, the complaint also included claims for violating the regulatory requirements to provide sufficient capacity to retain all oily bilge water onboard the vessel and to install dedicated piping to properly transfer oily bilge waste to a shore-side facility for disposal. After efforts to negotiate resolution of the violations with the defendants proved unproductive, the United States filed the complaint last year in the district court, the defendants failed to respond or appear, and the United States proceeded to secure the final judgment entered by the court. 

“This enforcement action reinforces the importance of safety and pollution prevention measures within this fleet of fishing vessels,” said Captain Christopher Culpepper, Commander of the Coast Guard’s Sector Western Alaska and U.S. Arctic. “The defendants’ illegal pollution practices and endangerment of their own crew could have been readily prevented through proper operation and maintenance of the vessel. Commercial fishing vessel owners and operators must take care to operate safely and prevent oil discharges into our nation’s waters.”

Section 311(b) of the Clean Water Act makes it unlawful to discharge oil or hazardous substances into or upon the waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines in quantities that may be harmful to the environment or public health. In addition, the Coast Guard has promulgated spill prevention and pollution control regulations under the Act for vessels and other facilities. Overboard discharges of oily mixtures, whether by directly pumping out oily bilge water that has not been properly treated or by attempting to pump only the portion of oily bilge water beneath a floating oil layer in the bilge (so-called “decanting”) has long been unlawful under federal laws and regulations. Kodiak Harbor provides an oily bilge water disposal program at the docks.

Clean Water Act penalties paid for oil discharges and related pollution prevention violations are deposited in the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund managed by the National Pollution Funds Center. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund is used to pay for federal response activities and to compensate for damages when there is a discharge or substantial threat of discharge of oil or hazardous substances to waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines.

-USCG-

  fines, Kodiak, pollution, uscg