Patent ID: 8302626

Claim:
A plant for liquid pollution collection in a marine environment, the plant comprising: a marine vessel configured and designed to sail on a water surface under normal conditions, the marine vessel having a deck on an upper side of the marine vessel; a parallelepiped tank disposed at an interior of the marine vessel, the deck delimiting an upper surface of the tank; a polluting fluid disposed at an interior of the tank; and a conduit disposed in each of four corners of the upper surface of the tank, the conduits extending through the deck to the interior of the tank; wherein the conduits are all of substantially identical length; wherein each conduit includes a first end disposed at the interior of the tank, the first end having an opening disposed proximal to the upper surface and distal to a lower surface of the tank disposed opposite from the upper surface; wherein each conduit further includes a second end having an opening at an exterior of the marine vessel; wherein the first ends of the conduits are in constant fluid communication; wherein each conduit is configured to both introduce pressurized water to the interior of the tank and to discharge the polluting fluid to the exterior of the tank; and wherein the interior of the tank comprises an uninterrupted parallelepiped volume; the plant further comprising at least one long tubular needle configured to be introduced into said tank through one of said conduits in order to reach an uppermost or a lowermost point of said tank, depending respectively on whether the marine vessel is disposed upside down on a deck of the vessel or on a keel of the vessel, and the long tubular needle is further configured for extracting said polluting fluid from said tank and for conveying pressurized water into said tank.