Indian shipping officials have forbidden a former US Navy vessel from entering the Alang shipyards because the ship contains hundreds of tons of asbestos-laced material. The vessel, now christened Platinum II, has not been allowed to dock and undergo dismantling operations due to the environmental and worker safety concerns around the project that would involve disposing of shipboard components that include asbestos, lead batteries and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
If the ship is not allowed to enter the shipyards for disassembly, the owners of the former USS Independence are unsure as to what the vessel’s fate will be. Naresh Amrubhai Khuman, a representative of the vessel’s ownership group, stated that shipyard authorities gave their permission for the ship to enter Alang, the largest ship breaking yard in the world, but that government officials stepped in and, when they learned of the toxic substances on board, rescinded the permission.
Although Mr. Khuman stated that the legal documents surrounding the ship-breaking project were in order, Indian shipping industry officials questioned the authenticity of some of the ship’s registry papers. They also expressed concern about how shipyard workers would be dealing with more than two hundred tons of asbestos-containing material, as well as more than a hundred lead-plated batteries.
Another reason that Mr. Khuman and the ship’s owners, whom he declined to name, were anxious to have the ship disassembled at Alang is that the vessel’s hull has a sizable hole. The ship remains afloat of the country’s western coast, but Mr. Khuman mentioned his worries that, if authorities forced the ship to find another port, it might require another vessel to tow it to the new location, assuming it could still be seaworthy at all given the lengthy wait.
The Platinum II incident is not the only case where Indian officials have refused to allow a vessel to dock at Alang. In 2006, the French Navy’s decommissioned aircraft carrier Le Clemenceau was not allowed to enter the shipyard due to heavy concentrations of toxic substances, including several hundred tons of asbestos, in its components. Environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace have campaigned against allowing ships with asbestos contamination to be dismantled at yards that cannot properly dispose of the dangerous mineral.
Officials with the Indian government’s environmental quality offices have investigated ship-breaking projects that workers at the Alang shipping yards have carried out. According to a report issued in 2006, at least one worker in six at the facility suffers from some form of disease related to asbestos exposure. The investigation showed that many workers exhibited early symptoms of asbestosis, an inflammation of the lungs directly attributable to breathing in the mineral’s microscopic fibers.
Platinum II has also been involved in other environmental quality inquiries. The US Environmental Protection Agency fined the previous ownership group more than five hundred thousand dollars early this year after the ship left port carrying an estimated two hundred tons of PCBs, which the US Congress banned in 1976.
Both shipyard supervisors and government agencies are concerned that, since the workers on ship breaking projects use only basic tools and typically have neither the training nor the safety equipment to deal with toxic materials such as asbestos and PCBs, any efforts to dismantle Platinum II would create a disaster in terms of both worker safety and environmental protection with no resolution in sight.
Sources: BBC, Google Hosted News
