U.S. Ghost Ships Allowed to Dock in England

LONDON, UK, November 10, 2003 (ENS) - The first two U.S. ghost ships being towed across the Atlantic Ocean for scrapping can be temporarily docked at Hartlepool, Teesside, England, the UK Environment Agency said today, although permission to scrap them there was revoked last week by the same agency.

Environmentalists and Hartlepool residents are worried that the obsolete ships, laden with PCBs, asbestos and heavy fuel oil, may further damage the environment of the Teesmouth National Nature Reserve, which is already contaminated by industrial activities.

The UK Environment Agency gave Thursday, November 13 as the arrival date for the first two of four obsolete ships now under tow across the ocean from James River, Virginia. The other two will arrive sometime later this month. They are being allowed to move from the Atlantic around the south and east coasts of England to Hartlepool, Teesside on the country's northeast coast.

Able UK, a company based on Teesside, won a contract for the dismantling of 13 redundant U.S. naval auxiliary vessels from the James River Reserve Fleet, known as the Ghost Fleet. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), the agency responsible for the decommissioning of the obsolete ships.

The Canisteo is one of the two obsolete U.S. ghost ships set to arrive in Hartlepool on November 13. (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

The aim was to dismantle the 40 to 60 year old ships in order to recover the scrap metal. The proposal, assessed by MARAD and the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), was that the ships would be dismantled in dry dock conditions with a bund or barrier in place and the dock drained.

Satisfied that Able UK’s facility on Teesside could legitimately dismantle the ships in an environmentally sound manner, the UK Environment Agency consented to the proposed shipment on July 22.

On the basis that the ships would be scrapped under dry dock conditions, on September 30 the UK agency granted Able a modification of its waste license to increase the amount of waste that could be received at the site.

But in order to construct the bund, Able also required several permissions and agreements from a number of organizations, including the Hartlepool Borough Council, which were not in place.

The UK Environment Agency says it informed both Able UK and MARAD several times in October that the permissions were not in place, and advised against allowing the ghost ships to set sail. Regardless, the first two ships left the United States on October 7 and the second pair on October 17.

After the ships were already at sea, the Environment Agency reviewed the modification to Able's waste management license and decided to revoke the recent modification, leaving the ships in limbo on the high seas.

"The remedy for a shipment that cannot be completed is that the waste, in this case the ships, must return to the country of export," the agency said on October 30 and again today.

The Environment Agency has contacted Able UK, MARAD and the U.S. EPA informing them that the ships should return to the United States.

"The USA made representation to the UK government concerning the safety of returning the ships to the USA during the winter," the agency said today. The government agreed to offer "temporary storage in Hartlepool for the first two ships pending their return."

At a court hearing on November 5, a challenge to the Environment Agency's modification of Able's waste management license was referred to a full judicial review to take place in early December.

At the same hearing, lawyers acting for three Hartlepool residents were granted an injunction to prevent Able UK from carrying out any work on the vessels, other than to secure their safety, between now and the time of the court hearing in December.

The mayor of Hartlepool has called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to intervene to keep the ghost ships out of Hartlepool. "With no permissions or risk assessments in place, these ships cannot be sent to Hartlepool!" Mayor Stuart Drummond wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister after the court hearing November 5.

"It has today been announced that permission has been given for a judicial review," Drummond wrote. "This means no work is to be carried out until the end of the case, which will undoubtedly be into the New Year. Therefore, I urgently request that you enforce international law and turn the ships around."

Teesmouth National Nature Reserve (Photo courtesy English Nature)

Friends of the Earth UK Director Tony Juniper said, "There is no possible way this can be the closest safe place to store these ships. The Environment Agency made it clear that the ships should be returned to the United States as soon as it was safe, so why are they now sending them half way around the coast, to an area that is environmentally sensitive?"

The UK Environment Agency said, the vessels have been professionally verified as seaworthy and contain only quantities of hazardous substances which are common to all ships of that age. They are not carrying any form of cargo, toxic or otherwise, the agency said.

The agency said that if there is a "justifiable safety reason" for the vessels not to make an immediate return to the United States, it will work with government and other agencies to ensure that "suitable safe and environmentally sound storage is found for the vessels over winter until conditions allow for their return."

"I am sure the U.S. authorities will be delighted that Britain is prepared to be the dustbin of America, whatever the environmental risk." Juniper said. "But people in Hartlepool will be devastated by this decision. The area needs regeneration, not more dirty jobs.”

The Teesmouth National Nature Reserve is a coastal site with a range of habitats including intertidal mud and sand flats, sand dune systems, saltmarsh and grazing marsh. The site has industrial context at the mouth of the Tees Estuary, close to Middlesborough, Stockton-on-Tees, Billingham and Hartlepool.

English Nature, the government funded body that promotes the conservation of England's wildlife and natural features, says the Teesmouth Reserve protects the core feeding and roosting sites for the internationally important wader and wildfowl populations of the Tees Estuary and adjacent Cleveland coast.

Knot, redshank, Sandwich tern, cormorant, shelduck and ringed plover are all present in significant numbers at various times of the year. The reserve harbors the only regular breeding colony of common seals on the northeast coast of England.