Magic Pipe

A surreptitious modification to a ship's oily water separator or other waste handling equipment that allows contaminated bilge water and other waste liquids to be discharged directly overboard, bypassing the treatment the equipment is meant to provide, in violation of maritime pollution regulations; the device is called a magic pipe because it makes untreated waste water disappear at sea, sometimes discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of contaminated water untreated. The pipe can be improvised from ordinary hoses and pumps and is often disconnected and hidden aboard ship so regulators cannot detect its use, and because ships are legally required to keep records of waste treatment, magic pipe cases frequently also involve falsified record books. Use of the device violates the MARPOL 73/78 international pollution control treaty and is prosecuted seriously in the United States, where cases have produced large fines for shipping companies and prison sentences for crew; a 2016 case against Princess Cruises resulted in a forty million dollar fine, and in 2021 a ship engineer aboard the oil tanker Zao Galaxy was convicted of intentionally dumping oily bilge water along with witness tampering and submitting false paperwork, while the ship's operator was fined 1.65 million dollars. Cases are often exposed by whistleblowers among the crew, and enforcement is complicated by a shortage of port facilities in developing countries equipped to legally receive oily waste for disposal.