U.S. Court Asked to Stop Export of Nine Ghost Ships

WASHINGTON, DC, June 3, 2004 (ENS) - Two environmental organizations have filed legal action to prevent the federal Maritime Administration from exporting nine more decommissioned ships from the National Defense Reserve Fleet, known as the Ghost Fleet, to the United Kingdom for scrapping.

In documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC the Basel Action Network and the Sierra Club contend that the Maritime Administration (MARAD) has violated three federal environmental laws by exporting four of the defunct vessels to the UK and deciding to export nine more.

In court action last October, the two groups obtained a temporary injuction against the export of the nine remaining vessels, called ghost ships since they were anchored for years in Virginia's James River without anyone on board.

On Wednesday, the plaintiff groups asked District Judge Rosemary Collyer for a summary judgement that would block the export of any more ships.

Basel Action Network and the Sierra Club, and other environmental and citizens groups in the UK, maintain that the United States should scrap its own ships rather than export them to another country.

The rusting 15,000 ton former U.S. Navy Reserve vessel Caloosahatchee arrived on Teeside on November 12, 2003. (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

The vessels each contain large quantities of harmful PCBs, in excess of 50 parts per million, and MARAD has acknowledged that the Toxic Substances Control Act prohibits the export of such concentrations of PCBs, the groups claim in court documents.

Each vessel also contains asbestos, mercury and waste oils. The waste oils contain “benzene and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and may contain lead, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, and xylene,” they say.

Each vessel also contains unspecified quantities of arsenic, lead, freon, and ethylene glycol; lead-based paints that may contain red lead tetroxide, tributyl tin, lead chromate, chromic oxide; and discarded paints that may contain formaldehyde, toluene, methyl ethyl ketone, trichloroethylene, and methylene chloride.

In July 2003, MARAD entered into a contract with Post Service Remediation Partners to tow 13 decommissioned vessels from the James River in Virginia where the National Defense Reserve Fleet is tied up to the Able UK facility in Teesside, United Kingdom.

Able UK was to dismantle the vessels, recycle the scrap metal, contaminated waste oils, and other materials, and dispose of the PCBs and other non-recyclable materials.

But Able UK was not prepared with all the necessary local and national permits to receive and scrap the ghost ships. The four ships were towed across the Atlantic Ocean last October, but Able was not able to receive them, and they are presently moored at Greythorpe Dock near Hartlepool at Able’s Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre.

The UK Environment Agency has concluded that the environmentally preferable option is for the four ships to remain in Teesside until Able UK has carried out all the detailed environmental appraisals required for the building and operation of a dry dock facility, the type of facility required to scrap the ships.

The 58 year old Caloosahatchee docked at Greythorpe (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

Before the arrival of the first four ships, the Environment Agency modified Able UK’s Waste Management Licence to prevent any dismantling taking place. This also required Able to take steps to ensure that the ships were maintained in a seaworthy state and held in an environmentally safe manner pending resolution of the situation.

The Environment Agency says, "The four vessels expose neither the environment nor the public to any greater risk than much of the shipping going in and out of UK ports on a daily basis. Regular environmental monitoring is being carried out to check that no pollution is occurring whilst the ships are moored."

The U.S. government has agreed that the four ships at Graythorp will be repatriated unless a legally and environmentally sound means of disposal is found.

MARAD has also provided assurances that the remaining nine vessels will not leave the United States unless all permissions are in place.

Able UK is now attempting to rectify its legal position to enable ship dismantling to take place in its dockyard. This requires Able UK to obtain a number of permissions.

• Planning Permission for dismantling ships and to construct a bund or gate across the entrance to the Dock.

• A new Environment Agency Waste Management Licence to allow dismantling of ships.

• A Marine Consents and Environment Unit Licence from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs to permit the construction of the coffer dam to create the dry dock. A separate license is needed to permit disposal of dredged material needed to be removed during the construction of the coffer dam, the dredging of the dock basin and the dredging of the navigable channel.

• PD Teesport Harbour Authority agreement for dredging of the navigable channel and the adjacent Able berths.

• The Department of Transport agreement to dredge in the dock basin.

In addition, Hartlepool Borough Council and the Environment Agency are discussing a process for consulting the public on both the Waste Management Licence and the Planning Permissions.

In their motion for summary judgement against any further export of ghost ships, BAN and the Sierra Club note that the United Kingdom has not consented to the import of any of the nine additional vessels MARAD has decided to export.

Nor has any of the transit nations – France, Belgium or Ireland – consented to the passage of any of these nine vessels through their territorial waters, the groups point out.

In the UK, Friends of the Earth won a High Court Case in December which has ensured that proper environmental investigations are now being carried out into the environmental risks posed by scrapping the ships, especially into the internationally protected wildlife site in the River Tees estuary, and to ensure better public participation in decisionmaking.

Sunset at the mouth of the River Tees (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

"We are pleased that the Environment Agency has learnt important lessons from the ghost ship saga," said Friends of the Earth UK Campaigns Director Mike Childs. "Proper environmental investigations are now being carried out into the environmental risks posed by developing a ship-scrapping facility and local people will be fully consulted. While these issues are both crucial, Friends of the Earth still maintains that rich countries should deal with their own waste, not export it."

In March, Greenpeace, the Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson and the GMB union announced the joint initiative ‘START Ship Recycling’ at a news conference in London. The campaign aims to ensure that all redundant EU shipping is dismantled by specialist European yards.

The Greenpeace iniative has the support of Able UK Managing Director Peter Stephenson, who hopes that Able will obtain the permissions it needs to be one of those specialist ship scrap yards. “With the huge demand for ship recycling and the fact that we have a world-class facility here at Graythorp," he said, "there is a tremendous opportunity to attract investment and jobs to our area."

MARAD has chosen not to assess the alternative of U.S. disposal of the nine vessels at issue. MARAD argues that “ship disposal facilities that can accommodate a number of vessels simultaneously are needed,” and that “no U.S. disposal facility currently has the capacity to accommodate a large number of ships simultaneously or can fully meet the cost-effectiveness required by MARAD.”