Princess Cruise Lines will pay a $40 million fine for "deliberate pollution of the seas and intentional acts to cover it up," according to the Department of Justice, which calls it "the largest-ever criminal penalty involving deliberate vessel pollution."
The California-based cruise operator also agreed to plead guilty to seven felony charges over illegal practices on five ships dating back, in at least one case, to 2005.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Princess illegally dumped contaminated waste and oil from its Caribbean Princess ship for eight years — a practice that was exposed by a whistleblowing engineer in 2013.
The engineer quit his job over the dumping when the ship docked in the U.K. and alerted British authorities, who notified the U.S. Coast Guard. He said other engineers were using a device called a "magic pipe" to bypass the ship's water treatment system and unload oily waste into the ocean.
Then, other engineers attempted to hide the evidence of illegal dumping before British investigators could board the ship, according to the Justice Department. The statement read: "The chief engineer and senior first engineer ordered a cover-up, including removal of the magic pipe and directing subordinates to lie." This continued during a subsequent investigation led by the U.S. Coast Guard.