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discharge of garbage including plastic are being prepared by the 

 U.S. Attorney in Florida, and the Coast Guard is preparing a 

 fourth for possible referral to the Department of Justice for 

 criminal prosecution. 



To augment our regular enforcement efforts, the Coast Guard 

 has recently conducted a number of specific enforcement 

 operations targeting all possible polluters of the marine 

 environment. For two weeks in February this year the Seventh 

 Coast Guard District launched a major environmental enforcement 

 effort using cutters, aircraft, and sensor technology to detect 

 violators of the MARPOL Annex I and V discharge prohibitions off 

 the southeastern coast of Florida. We were ably assisted by the 

 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Environmental 

 Protection Agency (EPA) in this effort. A similar operation has 

 just been conducted in the Eleventh Coast Guard District where 

 all types of vessels were monitored, primarily for Annex V 

 violations, by aircraft as they entered or left port and 

 transited the waters off southern California. 



INTERAGENCY COOPERATION 



The Coast Guard's compliance/enforcement program is an 

 interagency effort. The Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant 

 Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, has played a significant 

 role by incorporating Annex V compliance checks and education 

 during its vessel boardings to check garbage handling procedures. 

 This has allowed the Coast Guard to reach a much larger segment 



