Cruise Line Admits Sewage Discharge
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ANCHORAGE — A cruise ship company will plead guilty to discharging 20,000 gallons of untreated sewage from one of its ships while docked in Juneau harbor, the U.S. attorney’s office said Tuesday.
In addition to paying $200,000 in fines and $500,000 in restitution, Holland America Line Cruise Ships will spend $1.3 million on a plan to prevent a similar accident.
The Seattle-based company also will be placed on three years’ probation after the plea agreement is signed Monday in federal court.
“It was a mistake and shouldn’t have happened,” company spokeswoman Rose Abello said. “We apologize and we admit it and we are sorry, and we have taken significant measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The problem arose aboard the 1,258-passenger ship Ryndam on Aug. 17, 2002, and was compounded when the crew ignored audible and visual alarms activated when a sewage tank approached maximum capacity.
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