They’re derided as “environmental timebombs” and “floating garbage dumps.” Yet more than half the world’s 10,000 oil tankers are still of the old-style, single-hull variety despite outcries following every disastrous spill, from the 1989 Exxon Valdez in pristine Alaska to this week’s sinking of the Prestige off the verdant coast of northwestern Spain.
A U.N. treaty banning single-hulled tankers finally entered into force this year ﾗ but the phase-in period stretches to 2015.
Until then, European Union officials charge their efforts to impose stricter inspections are being subverted by shipowners who steer clear of EU harbors or avoid dropping anchor when they have to refuel or pick up supplies. Yet the oil they spill passing by can wash ashore anyway ﾗ as the cleanup crews scooping sludge from Spanish beaches Wednesday can attest.
“These vessels now avoid European ports because they know it’s risky for them,” said Gilles Gantelet, spokesman for EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio.
Authorities in Rotterdam, Netherlands, which has the world’s busiest port, agree.
“It’s quite obvious that older vessels, those with very bad maintenance, do not enter the port of Rotterdam because the risks are too big for them,” said Minco van Heezen, spokesman for the Rotterdam Port Authority.
Those that don’t pass muster can be fined or even “chained up for a long time,” he said.
The number of dockings ﾗ and repair work ﾗ done by Dutch shipbuilders has been declining over the past few years, said Ruud Schouten of the Netherlands Shipbuilding Industry Association.
“It’s the same in other west European countries,” he said. “Regulations are tougher here than some other parts of the world, (so) if you have a vessel which is not up to the standards, then it’s better to go elsewhere.”
As business declines in western Europe, work is migrating to low-wage countries in eastern Europe, Asia or on the Arabian peninsula, he said.
The Prestige was loaded in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Latvia and was en route to Singapore when it ruptured in stormy weather last week. It split in two and sank Tuesday, about 245 kilometers (150 miles) off Spain’s coast.
An estimated 1.6 million gallons of fuel and oil have been spilled into the Atlantic Ocean, threatening rich fishing grounds off the Spanish region of Galicia.
According to the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), which validates a ship’s seaworthiness, the tanker’s last annual inspection was done in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in May. Its last detailed inspection ﾗ done in dry dock in China over several weeks ﾗ occurred in May 2001, said Stewart Wade, vice president of the Houston-based agency.
“At the time of this incident, the Prestige was fully in compliance with all of our requirements,” he said.
The International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency whose motto is “safer shipping, cleaner oceans,” has no information about “ships avoiding particular ports,” said spokesman Lee Adamson in London.
“That’s not to say it’s not happening,” he added.
But he said inspections are carried out under the auspices of the country whose flag the ship is flying. “The owner wouldn’t just choose,” he said. “The flag state authority would have to give its approval.”
The Prestige was owned by a Liberian company but registered in the Bahamas, a so-called “flag of convenience” known as a tax haven. Adamson said the IMO has no data on the safety records of ships registered there.
Since inspections are carried out by ABS surveyors, “the standards should be the same worldwide, said Edmond Brookes, deputy director-general of the British-based Chamber of Shipping. But as to whether they are in practice, he said, “you’d have to ask the flag states.”
The ship’s operator, Universe Maritime, denied that the vessel had been avoiding EU ports. A spokesman at the company’s offices in Athens, Greece, said the Prestige had been sailing mainly between the Gulf and the Far East for the past three years.
“It’s not a case that an owner is trying to avoid anything, but if it’s picking up fuel, oil in Russia in this case, then it’s not going to call at a port in Europe on the way through,” the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
The ship did stop in the British outpost of Gibraltar for refueling last June, but authorities there say it did not enter the port. It put in a few days earlier at the Greek port of Kalamata, but Greek officials said because it was “in transit,” it was not subject to inspections under treaty obligations.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, attacked such distinctions as a disingenuous way to “get around safety measures by playing with words or the number of meters between the vessel and the port,” as Gantelet, EU transport commissioner de Palacio’s spokesman, charged Tuesday.
French President Jacques Chirac called on Tuesday for a “draconian” maritime security policy and criticized the “inability of officials … in particular European, to take the necessary measures to fight against the laxity that allows the development of these garbage ships.”
Yet France, along with Ireland, are being sued by the EU’s executive Commission for not carrying out enough inspections of ships entering their ports.
De Palacio, visibly angry at a news conference Wednesday in Strasbourg, France, demanded EU governments, who are responsible for their ports, deal with what she termed “environmental timebombs.”
New rules requiring more inspections, especially of older, single-hulled tankers, don’t take effect until 2003, but she urged countries to start now.
“We’ve wasted valuable time,” she said. “Pollution knows no borders.”
By Paul Geitner, Associated Press Writer
