The Princess Cruise Lines has plead guilty to seven different felony charges having to do with intention ocean pollution as well as intentional acts to cover it up. The cruise ships have reportedly been dumping oil into the sea.
According to the Department of Justice the cruise line will be fined $40 million in the case, which is the highest criminal penalty in history involving deliberate vessel pollution.
Princess Cruise Lines released a statement about the situation on their website.
“We are extremely disappointed about the inexcusable actions of our employees who violated our policies and environmental law when they bypassed our bilge water treatment system and discharged untreated bilge water into the ocean.”
“When we became aware of this back in August 2013, our headquarters management cooperated with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and at the same time we launched our own internal investigation to learn all that we could about what happened.”
A separate statement accepted full responsibility for the incident.
“This settlement clearly shows that we fell short on our commitment to the environment, and for this we are very sorry and we take full responsibility.”
