Contaminated US ships set to cross EU waters despite protests

By Martin Banks

Date: 06/11/03

FOUR dilapidated US Navy warships are due to pass through EU waters tomorrow (7 November), in defiance of an outcry by the European Commission, MEPs and environmentalists.

The ships, heavily polluted with asbestos and other dangerous chemicals, are due to be decommissioned at a breakers' yard near Hartlepool, north-east England.

The ageing vessels, which will pass through Irish, French and Belgian waters, have continued their journey from the US, despite a warning from the UK Environment Agency that no planning permission has been granted for their dismantling in Britain. Able UK, the company which is handling the ships, is due to dismantle another nine rusting US Navy ships, as part of a €17 million contract.

Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström said it made "no sense" for the ships to cross the Atlantic.

Gilles Gantelet, spokesman for Energy and Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, said: "We don't want to become the United States' dustbin. We are talking about ships that are almost 60 years old. We don't want them in our waters. We consider it to be very dangerous to take the risk of polluting the sea for commercial reasons."

Green/European Free Alliance deputy Caroline Lucas said: "Bringing unsafe, leaking and contaminated ships halfway round the world is madness and could lead to environmental disaster." She has lodged an official complaint with the Commission that the deal to dismantle the ships violates EU law.

Lucas, whose south-east England constituency contains hundreds of kilometres of coastline which the ships are due to pass, added: "If we have learned anything from the Erika and Prestige disasters it must be that Europe must investigate the threat before the ships concerned leave their port of origin, not after another coastline has been buried in deadly waste."

Campaigners from Friends of the Earth have asked the High Court in London for an injunction to prevent the ships docking on Teesside.

Seven years ago, then US president Bill Clinton ruled that 120 of its old Navy vessels could not be scrapped in developing countries because their pollution and toxic loads risked the lives of shipyard workers. Among the four "ghost-ships" heading for Hartlepool is the 12,000-tonne supply vessel Canisteo, which was launched in 1945 and saw service during the Cuban missile crisis and Korean War.

Green campaigners have also voiced concern about a 40-year-old asbestos-ridden French aircraft carrier, Clemenceau, currently anchored off Sicily while lawyers argue over whether it can enter a breakers' yard in the northern Spanish port of Gijon. The French government last week tried to persuade the Greek authorities to carry out the work instead, but Athens has refused to allow the ship to dock in Piraeus.

Four ageing US navy warships are due to be dismantled at a Able UK, a breakers' yard near Hartlepool, England. The vessels have sailed across the Atlantic and entered European Union waters on 7 November 2003. The ships are heavily contaminated with asbestos and other dangerous chemicals and the whole issue has caused a furore among environmental groups.