San Diego
A Shelter Island yacht refinishing company was fined $30,000 in federal court Monday after its president admitted that his employees discharged sandblast waste containing toxic metals into San Diego Bay.
Wilson Yacht Refinishing, 2390 Shelter Island Drive, entered a corporate guilty plea for one violation of the federal Clean Water Act, Assistant U.S. Atty. Melanie Pierson said.
Pierson said the charge against the refinishing firm stems from an incident in September, 1987, in which Wilson Yacht employees were sanding a ship and dumped the waste into the bay. Pierson said a sampling of the waste showed that it contained arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, tin and zinc.
U.S. District Judge William B. Enright imposed a $30,000 fine against the company, which faced a maximum $50,000 penalty from the single felony charge.
Jerry Coughlan, attorney for the company, said Wilson Yacht Refinishing has taken “substantial actions to remedy the kinds of situations” that would lead to the dumping of sandblasting waste into the bay. Those actions include putting netting around the boats to catch the sandblast waste, he said.
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