Archived press release

Safe Disposal Must Be Found For Four Ghost Ships

26 November 2003

Friends of the Earth is urging the Government to ensure that an independent assessment is carried out to identify the least environmentally-damaging option for disposal of the four so-called ghost ships. The third of four ships is due to arrive in Hartlepool today (Thursday). The campaign group is calling on the Government to develop a national plan for the scrapping of ships, following revelations that some 2,000 vessels worldwide are destined for scrap in coming years [1].

Options include returning the ships to the United States if it is safe to do so or identifying a safe facility to scrap the ships in the UK. At present Hartlepool is not a safe option since there is no dry dock and no Environmental Impact Assessment has been carried out into the potential impacts of scrapping these ships on the internationally protected wildlife sites nearby.

The third and fourth ships are coming to Hartlepool despite the Environment Agency telling Able UK and MARAD three times that they should not set sail from the United States [2]. Canopus is expected to arrive in the River Tees on Thursday followed by Compass Island on Friday. The two ships, contain between them more 330 tonnes of non-liquid PCBs.

Friends of the Earth has opposed importing the US ghost fleet vessels to Britain because the US has the facilities to dispose of its own waste, including the toxic waste within the ships Exporting the ships to Britain could set a dangerous precedent which could result in the US administration exporting other ships from the fleet to developing countries [4]. The environmental campaign group is also concerned by the plans to dismantle the ships in Hartlepool because of the lack of an environmental impact assessment into the threats posed to the internationally important wildlife site at Seal Sands. A High Court hearing on the 8^th December will address some of these issues.

Friends of the Earth Campaigns Director Mike Childs said:

"The Government must act to ensure that this whole fiasco cannot happen again. We now have four ships sitting in UK waters without any facilities for safely dismantling them. And yet we are told that thousands of ships will need recycling in the coming years and we do not have a plan of how these will be dealt with. Steps must be taken to ensure that this problem can be dealt with without putting the environment at risk here or abroad, and measures must be taken to ensure develop countries scrap their own ships rather than exporting their waste."

Notes

[1] Environment Agency Chairman Sir John Harman told an Emergency hearing of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday 19th November that more than 2000 ships are expected to become redundant internationally. Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to set up a multi-stakeholder forum, involving ship recycling companies, environment groups and government agencies, to develop a national plan for ship-scrapping. The plan should ensure the UK scraps its own ships rather than sending them to developing countries, as well as preventing ships from developed countries which are contaminated with hazardous chemicals from being imported into the UK. Environment Minister Elliot Morley has said that the UK does need a clear policy on the international trade in ships.

[2] See
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/commondata/105385/05a_ce_update-596178.pdf(PDF format)

[3] See concerns of US groups involved in tracking the trade in ships at www.ban.org/victory.pdf (PDF format)

Friends of the Earth position on the ships:

The US Government should not be exporting ships overseas containing hazardous materials. In this context, the UK Government should not encourage the export of ships containing hazardous materials for scrapping overseas when exporting countries are capable of dealing with their own waste. State of the art disposal facilities in developed countries could be used under carefully agreed circumstances to accept ships from other countries that do not possess such facilities. Most developed countries export ships for scrapping to the developing world where they are broken down under appalling health, safety and environmental conditions. The UK and the USA have pledged to end the export of PCB containing waste by signing the Stockholm Convention in 2001. The Convention is expected to enter force in 2004. The European Union is passing regulations which would prevent the import and export of ships containing PCBs and other listed toxic chemicals. This will prevent further PCB-containing ghost fleet ships being imported into Europe, but is unlikely to stop unscrupulous US or European ship owning companies exporting ships to the developing world via third countries. The European, UK and US Government's should act to stop this deadly trade. The UK should use its influence to prevent further ghost fleet vessels being exported from the USA, to either the UK or any developing country.

The US Authorities should not have authorised the Ships to start their voyage to the UK without ensuring that the necessary permissions were in place to build a dry dock and without ensuring that an Environmental Impact Assessment into the potential threats to internationally protected wildlife sites had been carried out. Procedures should be in place to prevent the breach national and international laws when ships are exported. Able UK and the US Marine Administration were warned by the Environment Agency and Friends of the Earth that the permissions were not in place prior to the first ships leaving. They ignored Environment Agency requests not to let the ships sail. A full investigation is needed to establish why this was the case. The results of such an investigation should inform future decision-making.

The four ships now here should not have left the USA. Now that they are in the UK, and no matter how undesirable a position that is, these vessels must be disposed of using the best environmental option. At present there is no dry dock in Hartlepool and no Environmental Impact Assessment has been carried out into the potential impacts on the internationally protected wildlife sites of scrapping the ships. The best environmental option may be to scrap the ships in the United States if a thorough and independent assessment shows the ships to be sea-worthy and the risks minimal. This option would ensure that the US has not successfully set a precedent for exporting ghost fleet ships again after President Clinton's 1994 ban on the export of such vessels because of the environmental hazard they created. On the other-hand the best environmental option may be to scrap the ships in a UK facility that has necessary permissions and where environmental risks have been fully assessed and appropriate consultations carried out with local people.

The Government must develop a national plan to identify potential sites in the UK for dry-dock scrapping operations. Given the future expected demand for state-of-the-art ship dismantling facilities, the UK should establish what role should be played by this country in the provision of such facilities in relation to the decommissioning of British ships (for example obsolete Royal Navy vessels), and ships coming from developing countries unable to provide such services for their own vessels. These should be developed following necessary environmental investigations and full consultation with potentially affected communities. Such a national plan and the development of suitable dry-dock facilities would help enable the UK to ensure that UK-registered ships are disposed of in the UK rather than in developing countries, as is the case at present. Additional action will, however, be required to prevent UK ships being exported to developing nations via third countries.

To see Greenpeace's position on the international ship trade, see: www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?ucidparam= ¬
20031124152535&MenuPoint=D-C&CFID=43768&CFTOKEN=21171315

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust