5-24-2019
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A Bellingham fishing boat captain is ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and perform forty hours of community service for dumping waste in Alaska waters.
Federal prosecutors say 32-year-old Brannon Finney of Bellingham dumped sandblast waste to avoid a $1,460 disposal fee.
Prosecutors say Finney’s boat had been sandblasted for repainting.
On June 15, 2017, she and her crew-members left Wrangell for Petersburg, Alaska carrying 16,000 pounds of sandblast waste.
A camera crew filming for a possible television reality show filmed the vessel dumping part of the load into Sumner Strait.
In a Facebook post to an Alaska news station, Finney defended herself, saying that she thought the sand was safe to discharge.