A Filipino ship captain has pleaded responsible to 1 felony depend for obstructing a U.S. Coast Guard investigation into air pollution crimes aboard his ship.

Genaro Anciano, 52, who was the very best rating officer aboard the tanker Green Sky, pleaded responsible to 1 depend of Obstruction of an Agency Proceeding in federal court docket in Charleston, South Carolina.

The cost stems from a Coast Guard investigation in late August 2015 into the bypass of air pollution prevention tools, together with using a “magic device”, aka a magic pipe, aboard the Green Sky. In court docket papers, the defendant acknowledged that members of the ship’s engine room, together with a senior officer, admitted to illegally discharging oily bilge waste overboard. The admission occurred previous to the August 2015 Coast Guard inspection on the Port of North Charleston, throughout which Anciano made a number of false and deceptive statements to the Coast Guard to cowl up the unlawful conduct.

The Liberia-flagged Green Sky is a 30,263 gross ton, ocean-going vessel that operates as a petroleum and chemical tanker and is owned by an entity included within the Marshall Islands. Over the course of a number of days, the traditional operation of the Green Sky generates hundreds of gallons of bilge wastes which are contaminated with petroleum merchandise and oil residues.

Both the United States and Liberia are events to the MARPOL treaty, which regulates the overboard discharge of bilge waste. It was prohibited to discharge bilge wastes from the Green Sky with out first operating that effluent via the ship’s oily water separator. According to the MARPOL treaty, all overboard discharges from the vessel’s bilges needed to be recorded within the Green Sky’s oil report e book. A bypass of the oily water separator, which isn’t recorded within the oil report e book, jeopardizes the accuracy and integrity of that doc. It is a separate federal crime for oceangoing vessels to enter a U.S. port with a false oil report e book.

Anciano’s sentencing has not been scheduled.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service with help from inspectors from Sector Charleston in addition to Legal from U.S. Coast Guard in Miami.