BEAUMONT, Texas – The oil and gas drilling corporation Rowan Companies, Inc. pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Beaumont to three felonies in connection with the routine discharge of pollutants into the Gulf of Mexico from one of the firm’s offshore drilling rigs.

Rowan Companies will pay a $7 million criminal fine, as well as community service payments totaling $1 million to five state government enforcement organizations for the purposes of environmental training, education, and enforcement coordination concerning violations of the Clean Water Act.

Rowan also provided a community service payment of $1 million to the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation to be used for preservation and protection projects at the Flower Garden and Stetson Banks National Marine Sanctuary located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

“We will continue to use every available resource to prosecute these crimes which compromise our environment and our safety, including criminal fines and penalties,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas John Ratcliffe. “I am particularly pleased that part of the fines will go directly to the future protection and preservation of the Gulf of Mexico and the Texas and Louisiana coastline.”

“The defendants sentenced today used the Gulf of Mexico as a dumping ground for oil and other waste,” said Granta Nakayama, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement and compliance assurance program.

The investigation conducted by the U.S. EPA and U.S. Coast Guard revealed that between 2002 and 2004, employees on the rig Rowan-Midland routinely discharged waste hydraulic oil mixed with water, used paint, paint cans, and other pollutants and garbage into the Gulf of Mexico and failed to notify the government of the discharges in violation of the Clean Water Act and the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

The charges associated with these violations were filed in the Eastern District of Texas.

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