US toxic waste 'ghost fleet' faces setback

From BBC News:

The Environment Agency has temporarily blocked plans to dismantle a fleet of contaminated former US naval vessels on Teesside. Hartlepool-based Able UK has signed a multi million pound deal to decommission 13 ships, creating an initial 200 jobs. The Environment Agency now says authorisations issued to allow dismantling and recovery of the ships at the Teesside yard are invalid. But Able UK said it is satisfied it has the relevant permission to carry out the work. The agency said a new licence would now be needed before the decommissioning could go ahead.

It said a transfrontier shipment (TFS) approval, which is granted by the Agency, had been given on assumption that all relevant permissions would be in place for dry dock dismantling at the yard. The Environment Agency said it has taken action after it found out several permissions and plans are not in place. It has advised Able that it should consider its position over the so-called "ghost fleet".

Agency area manager Craig McGreevy, said: "The agency's priority is to make sure that the environment is protected and that all the legal requirements are complied with. "If, in the future, all the environmental and planning requirements are met, there is no reason why dismantling and recovery of ships should not take place at the Able site." In a statement, Able UK managing director Peter Stephenson said: "' I can confirm that late yesterday we met with the Environment Agency who indicated to us they had a problem relating to licences issued in connection with our contract with the US Marine Administration." He said he understood the EA would be writing next week to set out its concerns and was surprised it had contacted the media. It therefore makes it very difficult for us to comment in detail on the matter. However we remain satisfied that we have relevant planning permissions in place for the recycling of vessels and the creation of dry dock facilities. We have applied for approvals from Defra in relation to work on the dry dock facilities, covering matters such as dredging.

"Given that similar approvals have been given in the past, we are confident they will be in place by mid-November. When we do receive the written comments of the agency we will obviously give them careful consideration." The first four of the ships are due to complete their Atlantic crossing within two weeks. The deal has seen protests from environmentalists, who claim the fleet is an ecological time bomb.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/3230111.stm


Spooky news for Halloween! Let's just hope there ain't a tornado brewing in the mid-Atlantic, now that four ships have already left and are en-route.....maybe their arrival in the UK was to have co-incided with Dubya's state visit (another toxic dump!)

It is my understanding from reading in Rodale's Scuba Diving and elsewhere that a lot of the concern about the "toxic" ghost fleet is way overblown. While I don't doubt that some of the asbestos is a hazard, I also understand that the PCBs could be cleaned up before the ship-breaking process proceeds in dead earnest.

on its doorstep then? Jane's Defence Weekly rates them as a major hazard to shipping, marine life and conservation.

As a matter of fact, I suspect my scuba club would say yes. Rodale's has claimed that many of these ships could have remaining fuel and PCBs cleaned up beforehand and the ships sunk to make very satisfactory artificial reefs.

I have also dived off of two aritifical reefs of this sort--the Antilla off Aruba (Which was sunk during World War II and NOT subjected to a proper cleanup before her German crew scuttled her) and the Mexican patrol vessel C-53 deliberately sunk off Cozumel.

Both vessels are teeming with marine life (The Antilla has an interesting collection of sponges and corals) , and the C-53 wreck has a huge number of juveniles surviving that would be fish food in open water. I am quoting from direct personal observation, not from some typist trying to ratchet up hysteria.

--VG

I wouldn't want my kids diving in that kind of polluted water because the health people are still evaluating long term health effects, particularly on fertility, as well as the carcinogenic aspects of toxicity

I still believe decontaiminated ships like such as those from the ghost fleet are far more helpful than dangerous to marine life. Twentieth-century steel ship wrecks teeming with fish and invertebrates show little sign of posing much of a threat. Should ships from the ghost fleet have the PCBs, fuel oil, and contaminants like batteries removed, they will prove very beneficial for marine life--just as most current shipwrecks and articficial reefs are proving to be.

This "long term study" guff sounds like the sort of stall a High Tory conservative trots out to justify his or her cavalier disregard for global warming or ground water pollution.

And that includes taking others' political inventories....

PCBs have been linked to male infertility, low sperm count and prostate cancer. Don't think that there's any politics involved in that.

Anyone who thinks healthy skepticism about exporting contaminated ex-US Navy vessels is a challenge to their superiority - as a deep sea diver or authority on marine wreckage - obviously has issues that only maturity may/may not help to sort out.

If they are so safe, why doesn't the US Navy do its own dirty work?

Don't know what a 'High Tory conservative trots out.....' because I'm not a voter, but I do know what it means to have children who have been hospitalised for serious illness due to contact with contaminants, pollutants and toxic material that is unfit for human ingestion. And asbestosis is one of the most awful diseases anyone can suffer.

. . . - doesn't he want to "explore" the Alaskan Wildlife Area

- feck the environment and the animals just for OIL ??

correct me if I am wrong, but ur pResident has his personal adgenda, and is just using taxpayer's money to get it ?

( not like he doesn't have enough $$$ of his own)

Junior managed to get the taxpayers to pay the bill for invading two countries so far -

Is all of Amerikkka asleep ?

Y'all have ur own Hitler running ur country

Just My Canadian Opinion -

too often missing from this forum. I agree its much ado about nothing.

The reason I chose to object to the hysteria concerning the ghost fleet is because I firmly believe that enviornmentalists should pick their fights with care so as to achieve the maximum effect with their scarce resources when arrayed against deep-pocketed corporate interests, complascent regulators, and corporate-sponsored junk science research institutes.

Something has to be done about these ships by somebody. They are deteriorating very badly at their anchorages on the US Atlantic and Pacific coasts Personally, I believe that most of these could be at least partially decontaminated and these fifty year old ships could be sunk to make artificial reefs to benefit stressed, over-fished fish populations as well as providing a freebie for scuba divers and recreational fishermen. The states of Delaware and New Jersey feel the same way about old New York City subway cars doing service off their coasts.

Yes, I do believe that asbestos does present a problem on dry land where people rub elbows with the stuff or get it in their clothes and onto their skin. Asbestos contamination from a sealed-off portion of a sunken frieghter strikes me as being far less serious a risk for someone either in a wet suit or even in a tee shirt and Speedo underwater who is trying to avoid scraping his or her arm or knees in a place where at most he or she can visit perhaps three hours a day four or five times a week--and that only if he or she is the local dive master.

There are other enviornmental fights more worth the attention and the money. Ground water contamination, for one. Sewage discharge from cruise ships is another. So is the problem of the "dead zone" facing fish and fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. So is contamination and pollution from materials discarded from the decks of small to medium sized boats and active off-shore drilling platforms.

--VG