Two Florida teen boaters caught on a viral video dumping garbage into the Atlantic Ocean Sunday each face a pollution charge and could serve jail time if convicted, NBC News reported Friday.
The teenagers, a 15-year-old from Gulf Stream and a 16-year-old from Boynton Beach, each face a one-count of third-degree felony charge of causing pollution intended to harm or injure human health or welfare, animal, plant, or aquatic life or property, NBC News reported, citing arrest reports by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The suspects reportedly turned themselves in.
Each suspect could bag a maximum possible prison term of five years and a $50,000 fine if convicted, according to the report.
The suspects were sailing along the Boca Raton Inlet on Florida‘s East Coast as they departed the annual Boca Bash — a well-attended boating party held on Lake Boca — when drones caught them dumping trashcan-loads of what appeared to be empty soda cans and PET bottles into the ocean, the video of the incident uploaded Monday by Wavy Boats, a media company producing boat action content, showed. More than 400,000 viewers have watched the YouTube video at the time of this report.
The occupants of the boat — no fewer than six — could be seen waving at the drones flying overhead, the video showed. One of the suspects could be seen raising one of the trashcans in the air after having emptied it, in what appeared to be a brazen recognition that the drones had captured the incident.
“We filmed this crew leaving Boca Bash 2024 yesterday at 1500mm zoom. Turns out they went out and dumped 2 trash cans full of garbage into the ocean,” Wavy Boats posted on Instagram.
The garbage also included food bags and plastic cups, NBC News reported, citing the FWC’s arrest report. (RELATED: Bottled Water Contains 100 Times More Plastic Than Previously Believed, Study Shows)
An investigator with the FWC reportedly tracked down the fathers of each suspect. Both fathers told the investigators they were seeking legal counsel.
“This is not a representation as [sic] of who we are,” the 15-year-old suspect’s father, who owned the boat, told the investigator, according to NBC News.
“We take the responsibility of caring for our oceans and our community very seriously, and we are extremely saddened by what occurred last weekend at Boca Bash,” said the parents of one of the suspects in a written apology seen by the outlet.
The Boca Bash organizers slammed the incident as “egregious” in a statement of disavowal released Tuesday and said it helped to identify both the owner of the boat and the suspects.
“We do not condone this behavior by any means and are appalled that the passengers even had the audacity to clap at the drone that was filming them dumping their garbage,” the statement partly read. “We hope the repercussions handed down can be viewed publicly as a warning of how important our waters are to us native Floridians.”
Calling the incident a “callous disregard for Florida’s environment” that “will not be tolerated,” FWC chairman Rodney Barreto reportedly told NBC News that the incident was “a teaching moment for all those involved — Florida’s natural resources are precious, and we should all do our part to protect them.”