[A-List] US imperialism: toxic waste

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Stories abound of Soviet vandalism of the environment, but there's an equal
quantity of horror tales concerning its US counterpart. It's just concealed
more professionally. Nevertheless, countries like Britain which follow the
Larry Summers route to economic success make it more difficult for the US to
hide its dirty laundry.

----

Campaigners protest as US navy's toxic fleet heads across the Atlantic
By Frances Williams in Geneva
Financial Times; Oct 23, 2003

Environmental groups renewed their attack yesterday on a controversial US
decision to send part of the US navy's ageing toxic "ghost fleet" to the UK
for scrapping. European governments and the European Commission also voiced
objections to the plan.

A report issued in Geneva by Friends of the Earth UK and the Seattle-based
Basle Action Network (Ban), which campaigns to strengthen the Basle
international convention on hazardous wastes, said the trans-oceanic
shipments were illegal as well as dangerous.

Four ships are already being towed across the Atlantic to Hartlepool in
north-east England, with the first two scheduled to arrive on November 5.
Environmentalists describe the dilapidated vessels, which contain hundreds
of tonnes of toxic materials including asbestos and PCBs as well as old fuel
oil, as "floating timebombs".

The remaining nine ships included in the contract have been blocked from
export by a court in Washington, pending a hearing next April of a lawsuit
brought by Ban and two other US environmental groups. They argue the US
action is illegal under a law prohibiting export of PCBs.

Friends of the Earth UK is considering a separate legal challenge based on a
British law banning the import of asbestos. Campaigners say European and
global rules restricting transport of hazardous wastes have also been
ignored.

Margot Wallström, the European Union's environment commissioner, told the
European parliament on Monday that the ships should be dismantled in the US,
where facilities existed. "I simply do not believe that it makes sense to
tow these contaminated ships across the Atlantic," she said. The commission
is due to give a legal opinion this year.

Belgium has protested to the British government that it had not been asked
for its consent for the ships to cross its territorial waters, as
international law requires.

Environmentalists say the US plan, if allowed to proceed, would set a
damaging precedent, permitting wholesale export of the naval "ghost fleet"
for dismantling in low-wage yards in Asia, where workers lack adequate
safety protection. Jim Puckett of Ban said yesterday that the US maritime
administration had indicated its intention to send the bulk of the fleet
abroad, the prime candidate being China.

The US and Japan were alone in resisting moves under discussion this week in
Geneva to strengthen rules governing ship-breaking under the Basle
convention, Mr Puckett said.

www.ban.org/Library/Needless%20Risk%20FinalA4.pdf