SEATTLE -- The captain of a Korean flagged ship was sentenced Tuesday for dumping hundreds of pounds of oil, contaminated waste and plastic into the Pacific Ocean, said the U.S. attorney’s office in Western Washington.

Hae Wan Yang, 54, of South Korea was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to two months of home confinement in the U.S. and two years of supervised release.

Yang was the captain of a ship operated by the South Korean Shipping Company.

Yang was accused of failing to record a dumping incident in which approximately six 55-gallon drums, 30 plastic-lined rice sacks and approximately 200 garbage bags containing oil-contaminated grain were thrown into the ocean during a trip from Korea to Longview, Wash, said the U.S. attorney's office.

The shipping company pleaded guilty to knowingly failing to keep an accurate garbage record book in October 2008 and paid a $500,000 fine and made a $250,000 community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for use in projects to restore the Puget Sound.

Court documents said Yang ordered crews to dump the waste overboard during a night in July 2008.

When the ship arrived in Longview, court documents said investigators with the U.S. Coast Guard were notified of the dumping. Coast Guard inspectors discovered evidence including that a section of the deck railing had been cut away and then welded back into place to facilitate the illegal dumping, the attorney's office said.

During Yang's court appearance, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Oesterle said this type of dumping is doing significant environmental damage. He said that the plastic materials Yang ordered dumped at sea will persist in the marine environment for 450 years.

Judge Benjamin Settle said he would have sent Yang to prison, but Yang has a life-threatening health condition and the judge wanted him in a U.S. residence so he could seek medical care.

This is the first prosecution in Washington for the dumping of plastics and garbage from a marine cargo vessel.