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MIAMI (CBS / AP) – A federal judge has threatened to temporarily prevent Carnival Corp. to moor cruise ships in US ports as a penalty for possible violation of probation conditions.
US District Judge Patricia Seitz said on Wednesday that she would make a decision in June, the Miami Herald said. She wants the president of the company, Micky Arison, and the president, Donald Arnold, to be present in the audience.
"The people at the top treat it like a gnat," Seitz said. "If I could, I would give all members of the executive committee a visit to the detention center for a few days. It's amazing how it helps people focus on reality. "
Carnival operates a Canada & New England cruise departing from New York with a stopover in Boston.
Miami-based Carnival is on probation for two years under a $ 40 million settlement for the illegal oil spill in the ocean from its Princess Cruises and for lied about the project, according to documents filed by the court.
Despite this, prosecutors claimed that vessels had dumped greywater in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, that they had been prepared prior to the court-ordered audit to avoid adverse findings, falsified records and plastic waste thrown into the ocean. The company has acknowledged these incidents in court proceedings.
In a statement after the hearing, Carnival said, "It seems that other people have misinterpreted the situation in court. We intend to fully address the issues raised at today's court conference. "
Carnival's director of communications, Roger Frizzell, said, "Our environmental responsibility has been and remains a top priority for society."
The five-year probationary period began in April 2017 and requires a third-party auditor to inspect vessels owned by Carnival and its subsidiaries. Carnival has nine cruise lines and 102 ships.
The documents filed by the courts indicate that in 2017, Carnival had put in place a program to prepare ships prior to audits to avoid negative results. Seitz ordered the company to stop in December 2017, and that stopped. But federal prosecutors said the practice was continuing in 2018.
Prosecutors said internal emails shared between Carnival's affiliates had reported the practice. AIDA Cruises, a cruise company based in Germany, said in an email: "It would be really important to get on board August 12th for a week to have time to handle problems before audits and 39, avoid the results.
They said that a similar email from Seattle-based Carnival-based Holland America Line said "prevent audit results" as a goal for early 2018.
The court records revealed that the observer had found that Carnival and its affiliates had falsified records several times, no later than in September 2018, when a ship engineer Holland America Westerdam had falsified maintenance records to suggest that he had cleaned and tested equipment while he did not have it. According to the court's classification, the same vessel reportedly dumped 26,000 gallons of gray water in Glacier Bay National Park in September 2018.
Observers also found that the ship Carnival Elation had thrown plastic waste overboard during an audit in December. The plastic was not separated from the food, according to the yard.
On Wednesday, the judge referred to a 45-minute presentation he received as a guest on Carnaval Corp.'s ultra-luxurious cruise line, Seabourn, about the harmful effects of plastic straws on the environment. marine.
"I thought about myself, I'm impressed," she said. "Of course, they talk, but they do not work."
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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