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AP
The former Exxon Valdez is anchored some six miles off the coast of the Alang shipbreaking yard in India on June 30.
India's Supreme Court this week delivered a ruling that could drastically change the way international ships are dismantled, but in the process cleared the way for the destruction of the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez.
The symbol of America's worst oil tanker spill, the vessel is now the Oriental Nicety after a series of ownership changes since the 1989 disaster.
It's been anchored off India since May, when the court blocked it from being beached at the infamous Alang shipbreaking yard. Activists had sued, arguing that importing such ships for dismantling violated the U.N. Basel Convention, an international treaty on hazardous waste transport.
In its ruling Monday, the court acknowledged that violation, drawing praise from activists who want ships recycled using tougher health and environmental standards.
"Hopefully this ruling will be the beginning of the end of the dark ages of ship recycling," Jim Puckett, director of the Basel Action Network (BAN), said in a statement. "Hundreds of poor and desperate laborers have been killed or exposed to hazardous chemicals as a result of the disastrous shipbreaking practices on Indian beaches."
But activists were perplexed when the court exempted the Oriental Nicety.
"Oddly enough, the court acknowledged in its ruling that there may be toxic material in the Exxon Valdez that has not yet been discovered," Colby Self, director of BAN's Green Ship Recycling Campaign, told NBC News.
The court concluded any dangerous material would be "exposed only at the time of actual dismantling of the ship."
"It is made clear that if any toxic wastes embedded in the ship structure are discovered during its dismantling, the concerned authorities shall take immediate steps for their disposal at the cost of the owner," India's top judges wrote in their order, which was reported by The Hindu newspaper and other Indian news media.
More than two decades after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, residents offer their advice to the Gulf Coast: Be prepared for a long, rough ride. NBC's George Lewis reports.
Longer term, the question will be whether the broader ruling is enforced.
Self voiced optimism but acknowledged that "political pressure is extremely high given the immediate economic impacts of this measure."
"The upcoming challenge is seeing that officials follow the court order," he said. One scenario, he noted, is that the local pollution control board might just issue a directive "to outwit the court's ruling."
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- Palestinian official under fire over Auschwitz visit
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- Obama authorizes secret US support for Syrian rebels
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Leave a Comment:
So there won't be any Waterworld now?
Just hope the Indians can get the lights turned back on first....
@east coast....
That's why I logged in to say...you beat me to it... funny.. (also your screen name)..
everyone got beat ..damn
After the Smokers abandoned the ship, it washed up in India...
Cant they just drop a flair down the stack thingy and blow it to smithereens?!
The Deacon of the Deez must be depressed. Now who is going to hand out tins of Smeet and offer up a toast to Old St. Joe?
Re-cycling great, but why is the U.S. outsourcing recycling or why didn't a U.S. company bid on this project, and it's not happening at a U.S. Port? Why isn't Obama funding more research $ into recycling hazardous waste? So much for Obama's new jobs and going green. But, what do you expect when Democrats consider food stamps = Stimulus.
Really sad, the U.S. manufactures so very little, we outsource everything, even recycling. Pretty soon we will have a very OBESE nation sitting on our fat A$$'s. (but hey, we'll be breathing clean air and eating evern more fast /fat food).
The Chinese youth stepped up last weekend and said, "NO" to building a pipeline to dump waste in the ocean--and won. Now, the movement in India to reduce pollution. The corporate polluters won't have anywhere to dump their waste and forced to clean up their act. The right/corporate lap dogs in the US want to ease regulations so they can finish us off. What's all the oil and minerals worth if you can't breath the air or drink the water?
USA can't recycle a ship like them. We pay our workers more than 50 cents a day.
Just like Ol' Gas Gauge said when Gil dropped the flare "Oh thank God!" - for you whiners look up who last owned that junk, then order Waterworld @ MalWart or Nyetflix or get a recycled copy somewhere to find your life. Nyuk 3X
Make a sh--tload of beer cans in honor..
@jwfun
Re-cycling great, but why is the U.S. outsourcing recycling or why didn't a U.S. company bid on this project, and it's not happening at a U.S. Port?
Our regulations (EPA) will not allow this kind of polluting activity happen on our shores. Do a little research on the Alang ship-breaking yard and you will be amazed at the pollution. That is the American way. Pollute the @!$%# out of others countries and keep ours as clean as possible. That is why American Corporations out source jobs, and activities. Because they can get away with it. Dole Pineapple in Thailand, 3 bucks a day for labor. Computers built in Mexico 11 bucks a day, processors manufactured in Malaysia, 1 buck a day, Photovoltaic cells (Solar Panels) manufactured in China, 2.5 bucks a day. Mercury, heavy metals, harsh chemicals, all dumped in the sewer and found in the drinking water. All because we can get away with it in foreign countries.
It doesn't have @!$%# to do with Obama and his jobs program. I wish it were that simple but it just isn't the case.
Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart = Made In China= cheap labor=pollute them not us.We are hypocrites.
Example: Take a bunch of scrap metal and load it on a ship bound for China. Offload that scrap metal at the Port of Shanghai using manual labor. Load that scrap in a truck, by hand, and transport it 118 kilometers to the Fu Shein smelting plant in Chang Dau Province and offload it by hand. Melt the scrap down and form a 35 kilogram billet (shaped like a cube of butter, only bigger). Load that billet on a truck and deliver it to the rolling mill/wire rope manufacturer (same province) where they make any number of products ranging from reinforcing steel (rebar), to angle iron, flat stock, and in the case, wire. The 20 gauge wire is then shipped to a manufacturer in Qinpu (Shanghai area) where they make all sorts of products including fireplace screens that just so happen to be sold at any number of retail outlets right here in the United States (under different brands) Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc.
All of that work, all of the process, all of the transportation to China, within China, and back to the United States to be sold to us. All of that for less than 10% of what it would cost to make it right here in the good old USA.
Now, can you tell me when it will end? My answer is never. The people that have all the money will continue to do it until it all balances out. Meaning our wages will be even with those in India, China, Pakistan, and Mexico. They will still have all the money and power. And we will be down here fighting for the scraps.
Ship-breaking is a risky procedure, especially where petro-chemicals are concerned. So, of course, the job is exported to third world countries where the companies involved can thumb their noses at any and all regulations (or simply buy-off any inspectors) and the most disadvantaged of workers are exposed to all sorts of hazards. Imagine taking a blow-torch to a forty-gallon oil drum in your backyard - now imagine a quarter million of those barrels. They don't even use a dry dock - they just run 'er up on the beach!
We are more sheep to follow what the leader says is right instead of being hypocrites. Years back the eco groups went out after glass bottles and paper bags, (hug a tree today), now instead of recycling glass and using a renuable resourse (trees), we have screwed up the pacific and atlantic ocean with a massive plastic floating garbage dump. we have electric cars that go 100 miles and stop. Back in 1910 there was a car that actually went 120 miles before it stopped. But wait, theres more. Lithium batteries are toxic waste. you can take a gas operated vehicle to a bone yard it will be crushed and recycled. not so with those batteries. Save the seals! Course now we got great whites showing up looking for dinner, (seals) and following guys in kayaks. Course shark attacks are still quite low.
We keep running with whatever political persuasion happens to be in office and neither of em do anything but make things worse.
We have no leaders in washington. My only real hope is that the person whether male of female that will have the intelligence and stamina to bring us outa the mess we are in (and it is going to get worse afghanistan aint over yet and the next recession has not started), was not an abortion in 1978.
The Activists are always trying to block the recycling of ships, but never come up with an alternate solution. That's alot of steel and other materials to waste and dumping in the ocean is not a solution.
Bahhh! I logged in to say that too. Then when I saw it was the first post I was gong to say "you beat me to it" but I was even beaten at that. I can't win :)
For info on this area go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16189808/Alang-Shipbreaking-Yard
thomas:
Your right on there! It's the wealthy have found a way to prey on the none thinking public, who will believe ANYTHING they are told! It is ONLY about making more $$$$ off of sheoples fears. All they have to do is play Al Gore, and create a fear in the sheople. If 1/2 of the sheople would just stop and THINK, about these things, they would dicover that these little "GREEN" things do NOT help the environment, but actually really make it worse! Look at what you have to do to the environment, for an energy efficient light bulb, that is so toxic to the environment, that the things you have to put it in are very harmful to the environment, that you are making it a lot worse. WE lose! Don't get me started on "Corporate" America's pollution too.
Just think/reason/read about these things before just diving in head first because some "Salesman" (Politician) said so. They are ONLY going to tell you what you want to hear, for THEIR personal gain.
but, but, but, I thought those richies were good guys who would create jobs if they were given tax breaks?!?!?!? OMG, you mean, they're just out for profit??? Who woulda thunk...
enuf... What's this nonsense about the rich? What they're talking about is the regulations that have forced this system come into play.
Another waste of a ship that could have been refurbished and put back into use.
Really, I was under the understanding a ship was only good for x amount of years, then had to be retired. It might me a saftey concern.
This ship is a single hull tanker. After the Exxon Valdez disaster and several other tanker wrecks the regulations surrounding takers were changed with all new tankers being required to have a double hull. The double hull prevents the actual tanks from leaking if the ship hits a reef, etc. With those regulations a time limit was also put in place that required older single hull ships be taken out of service by a given date. I believe the "Oriental Nicety" hit that date and is no longer usable in international trade.
This ship needs to be out of the loop as it is only a single hull vessel and vulnerable to underwater obstacles.
The destruction of a perfectly working ship is a waste of money, precious resources. The ship could have been converted for a thousand other functions. The ship is designed to be sea worthy for 100 years. There are ships just like this one that are being build today for tens of millions of dollars.
Hey Raymond it is going to converted. Into other uses. Its obsolete. Its called recycling.
@Raymond...
it will be re-smelted and turned into something else... like I-Beams for a hospital or something...
The only problem I see is that the coast in India where this happens is just an environmental disaster. If only some knew what it really looks like... I think I saw an artical on that years ago somewhere.
Actually, it will be cut up and melted into brand new steel... it is what we like to call recycling.
Raymond: We really don't need 25 year old supertankers sailing the oceans. It is obsolete and unsafe for continuation of its intended use. Moreover, what would you convert it to? Better for it to go to the cutter's torch now than to remain in service and probably suffer structural failure at some point in the near future.
It is considered by sailors to be "bad luck" to rename a ship. But even so, this is not considered an early retirement of this vessel. She has run her course. Time for her to die a good death as ships do.
Besides, that steel will find it's way into just about anything you can think of and in the process, she will be creating more jobs for people all over the world during the constant recycling process.
Yeah? Sell it to that outfit that grounded that shiny new cruise ship in Italy. they'll let their old skipper take this bucket on antarctic cruises to see the little penguins...no outside cabins. By the way who is this 'we' I see some of these bloggers(?) hide behindt? My old English teacher said 'we' used as some bloggers use it here is only appropriate for editors, reigning monarchs and the deity.
The Valdez is beyond her useful life....not to mention it is a single hull design. The reason it's going to/at India is because it spend the last years of it's life as a foreign flag vessel, and scrap prices are higher over there. The Valdez and the others in that class were built fast and cheap...in a time when capacity was all that mattered.
my god you people are such downers, no wonder there is so progress. that ship is NOT OBSOLETE! why would you think it was obsolete? because it has some decades on it? how old are you, can we say YOUR OBSOLETE! that ship could have had 50-75 years of service as another type of ship instead of a tanker, it was sea worthy. there was nothing unsafe about the design as single hull tankers have been in use longer than double hull and if you can pay attention and drive the thing, it wont hit a reef or be beached and spill. this ship was phased out due to politics and a new better design thats it, that does not mean that the ship is unsafe or obsolete as a sea worthy vessel. only excuses prevent the conversion.
the steel wont even matter as it will prob go to some third world crap hole and be wasted on whatever crap they build and ruin and you cant compete with indians slave wages so we will never have any thing similar to that here. just face the fact we will lose most all our industries to slave markets in third world countries.
if you keep throwing money in a fire and ask yourself where your money is going, maybe you should stop throwing money away.
@Swag
Many tankers built during that time period were built for a limited use. They pay for themselves in a few trips.
After a certain period of time the hulls are weakened and they are no longer seaworthy.
Swagganaut, think about the stresses the hull is subjected to as it plows though the seas. It flexes back and forth, up and down. Gradually, the ships structure begins to break down. Couple that with aging machinery, including an antiquated propulsion and electrical plant, and the ship is no longer an efficient money maker for anyone. The single hull makes it even less useful. Single hulls are banned in many places. As for conversion, then you have to deal with all the materials that this ship has carried over the years. A conversion to anything may cost more than simply building a new ship.
I've spent time on old ships and I've spent time on new ships. There is no comparison.
exxon valdez was a single hull vessel. Most oil transport companies now use double hull which may not keep oil from leaking out during a spill but might give the recovery teams enough time to pump out the oil so the spill will not be as bad. Course it would help if ships captains quit running aground.
couldn't it be refurbish as a cruise ship??? like this "new" law will change anything at these salvage yards..
The safety standards and passenger amenitites of a modern cruise ship are radically different than a 25 year old single-hull crude oil supertanker. Conversion of it into anything other than piles of scrap metal is not economically justifiable. It if was, they'd do it.
At 10 rupees a day per person thay should make short work of the demolishion.
India is rapidly becoming the environmental armpit of the world. All glory to the globalization that makes it possible (and profitable to the international financial elite).
Max...
They have to do it there because of all the environmental regulations here... that we CAN'T...
This means forien labor, shipping out (no pun intended) overseas... And also, who would do it for free since there wouldn't be any profit because of all the regulations... Here it's cheaper to skuttle it and make a reef out of it.
Yes, and thanks to these regulations we have rivers with water still supporting life. You should have seen the rivers in India.
your right, so the flip-side is we ship most all our industries to third world countries and lose tons of money and jobs but hey at least we have clean rivers right. there is a balance to regulations and progress but we have never found it and our politicians and citizens dont want it.
so be proud of that clean environment while penniless and jobless but hey at least you helped another person get a job and money, in another country.
The ONLY reason US economy is so screwed up is the corrupt politicians who forced the so called 'free trade' on the People. Free trade is only good for international big capital holders, not for consumers or producers.
@Max^108.... I don't make all that much... but I invested what little money I had back in my 20's...
I'll be retiring with a decent chunk of change...... I can't say that I'm a big capital holder... actually none.. I didn't want free trade in the first place... got laid off several times from manufacturing jobs because of it... but when the government hands you lemons... you make, well, you know..
@swaggert...... SOOOOOO TRUE.... ( I do see the scarcasm in your post)...
This is what the liberal agenda is all about... Helping 3rd world people because we are suppose to all be fair and equal in the world and in life... (I think that's B.S to begin with anyway).. You know.. Rule No.1.. Life is unfair.. Rule-2... You can't do anything about rule No.1...
Me personally... I liked the way Samual Colt made man equal... not the libbies...
Gee, You'd think some little third world country would want to buy it and immortalize it as a monument to the evil imperialism of the United States.
Ever heard of the USS Pueblo, and the notorious "finger" photo?
Come on all you lousy tree hugging left wingers!!! Leave them alone. Man, break the damn thing up. It's a lot of money in steel sitting there. If the Indians want to do it their way, let them! It's sitting waaaay over there, not here. Stop this left wing world safety police stuff lawsuit stuff. We're all sick of it! If the indians had any brains, they would just ignore these whiny idiots and break the thing up.
Perhaps the scrap metal can be sold and donated to the clean-up fund for Prince William Sound since Exxon eventually got by with a slap on the wrist after tying everyone up in court for over a decade. The pollutants are still affecting the area.
brtcarguy. I remember several years ago that the runoff from a nuclear reactor dryed up and people that lived near it were walking on it etc. Turned out they started having a massive amount of malformations in babies. About the only regulation they have over their is none.
HISTORY LESSON 101: OTOH, in the mid 1800's Admiral Perry went to Japan to start trade and bring them into the 18th century. Then in 1905 the Japanese got into it with Russia and torn the Russia Navy to hell and back and won. Amazing the world. Now you get the rest of the story, which leads the japanese and the US to 7 Dec 1941.
It seems to me overall that if a country wants to live in what we would refer to as a backward society, then leave them alone. Its what they want to do. the peanut farmer decided that it was rude crude and repulsive at the way the shah of iran (good bad or indifferant a US ally) was treating iranians, and should not be supported and cut off the aid to iran, causing the shah to fall and the eyetoldya to start a theocracy. Which shortly will have nuclear weapons if they dont have already.
The US and Russia survived the cold war with numerous border wars and somebodies finger on the button constantly. And there were some on both sides that demanded a first strike as they thought they could survive. Well its common knowledge that noone would. Now anyway.
I have heard all the liberal we are all alike mantra. Well individually we may be the same as the iranian people, however, their leaders, are not ready to have their finger on the button for a nuclear missle.
So the question remains if we will survive the third world becoming nuclear armed.
Common sense states that it is not a good idea to give an 8 year old a drivers license, a pistol and call him a cop. A lot of countries need to grow up. Ours included, however should Iran push the button on Israel for instance, they have a policy called Operation Sampson. Which is they will not use nuclear weapons as a first strike, however if nuclear weapons are used against them they reserve second strike. and currently the unclassified nuclear capabilities are three nuclear diesel submarines with 180 warheads. If Iran gets stupid, they will end up nuclear glass.
you can bring a country fast forward, however you cant fast forward the attitudes that were there when yo arrived. Or the question is why did the Japanese scream Banzai during their charges. it was a Shogun thing.
This was news months ago. NBC digging in the archives?
more jobs sent over seas is there not a company in the us that could do this also must be part of amamas job creating process
You are assuming that the ownership and registration of this vessel is still US. The current owner, a Hong Kong shipping company, has it registered in Panama. Why would the current owner send it to the US for dismantling? You comment/question is without point or merit.
why would they send it to india? since its not registered in india your counter argument is pointless. it would never happen here due to various regulations, laws, politics and a myriad of other reasons that has nothing to do with anything.
oh i think we are closer to panama than panama is to india and we use to own it but like retards gave it back.
So when safety standards are toughened and the number of jobs declines, what becomes of those currently working in the "Dark Age of Ship Recycling"? These new laws will force these poorest of the poor to their "next best option" which will be worse than the harsh conditions they are working under now.
If better jobs were available for these people, they would quit their current jobs as ship recyclers and work elsewhere. The reason these people accept employment doing such harsh, dangerous and low paying work is that they have no better options.
How cruel these laws can be.
It seems that this vessel could still be serviceable, if they would store the oil into large rubber bladders. You see the idea is for a rubber ball inside the tanker so if it crashes, the oil won’t spill out.
The hull is structurally worn out. Over 20+ years of service, the steel is subjected to bending and other stresses on the high seas. This ship has reached the end of its design life. Continued operation is simply flirting with disaster.
The hull is structurally sound. You can get another 50 years of service out of this ship with proper maintenance.
double hull is no safer than single hull, the only difference is that with the double hull at least you have another hull to break but the concept is still the same. if you hollowed out one ship and put another ship inside then viola you would have a double hull, not safer just redundant. a stupid captain can still break both hulls.
Rubber rips when it hits rocks. look at that italian? liner that wrecked. They now make oil tankers double hulled.
BRTCARGUY
If every country did what you are preaching, we would have no safe coastal areas. This beach in India is a dead zone. Not only has it killed the wild life, the people that work and live there are dying.
I remember seeing this story on 60 minutes. Kids with cutting torches, dismantling fuel lines and other pipes in these ships that carry flammable / hazardous liquids. If you want to see how bad this area is have a look. google photos Alang shipbreaking yard
What a mess that coast is. Let them have it. One more wont make it any worse there.
Would have made a hell of a crab boat. (Deadliest Catch)
And crawlin' with 200,000 ton o' crabs, She surely had the worlds deadliest crotch, arrr
How can an inanimate object be notorious?
It is just a ship that run aground because of the ship captains mistake!
How about the Costa Concordia. Captain went in close to shore to wave at the people. People were actually killed.
Then as a curiousity question, during WWII all of the countries of the world had ships sunk. now what about all the oil tankers? I know most probably caught fire. Well some were close to shore, why no spill problem with them. Not to mention all the other stuff carried and sunk. The ships that were sunk and did not catch fire were carrying each carrying 2 million gallons of bunker oil. did it float away or is all that oil just waiting for the rust to get thru and we are going to end up with a massive oil spill 70 years later?
Just curious. Lotta fuel sunk to the bottom.
Drop it on Syria
thank you, come again!
...oh mother sh!t that is one ugly tub of rusty they have parked upon our beautiful beach!
I bet you could make a billion bicycles out of that old bucket
While the Indian scrap yard, is, without question, hell on earth (if you've ever seen the documentary), here is the problem. Ships of this type, or ANY type, for that matter, will ALL have some sort of waste that is on some list of somebody's hazzards. Shell (not the oil company) corporations will operate them for their usefull lives and beyond and then abandon the ship at some wharf, at some port, anywhere in the world. It will derelict, and just eventually sink in place because there will be no economic value in trying to scrap it.
Or, it wil sink in an insurance scam.
Do I have a solution? No, just an opinion.
And we have the mothball fleet with massive amounts of asbestos that is just sitting differant places. they cant seem to find a way to remove all the asbestos and other nasties that is cost effective. I guess they will just sit till they sink and rot in place.
You couldn't stop those Hindus from chopping up that ship up if you tried! THis is how they make thier living. Remember when a bunch of people were hired to clean up that spill in Alaska? Most of them made more money than they had ever made in their lives. THey stood in line to do it. The Exxon contractor had to turn people away. But reportedly there is now a high incidence of dread diseases (like adult lukemia) killing them.
Is this a lesson in risk/reward, or human nature?
I just wonder what all these "corporations" are going to do when no country will take this kind of stuff in because of the harm it does to that respective country?
BTW, you wanna see hell on Earth, visit a Chinese iron foundry, where the engine block in your new CHevy came from.
What's up with these headlines??????? Notorious ship to be broken up. Cyclist killed by bus in London??????
Newsflash... The exxon valdez didn't leave port and run aground by itself, IT WAS PILOTED by a dumbass. A bus in London at the olympics didn't crank itself up and drive around the olympic venue in search of prey. It was driven by an idiot who ran over a person on a bicycle.
With the litigiousness of todays undereducated writers you would think that they would want to assign blame to a flesh and blood organisim, not an inanimate object like a ship , bus or a SUV. Come on do I have to think of everything? Dang.
They melt them down and make them into 7-11's
These idiots are worried about the possible waste hazard? What about the hundred of "ship breakers" that work in substandard conditions, in unsafe work area's and with no safety gear. they have no medical help and the wage's are about $1.00 for a days work!
i wonder how many people here saying "that ship has 50 years of life left" have even been hired to work on a ship or design one? i am willing to bet NONE. Salt water is one of the most corrosive environments for steel. found in nature. Salt water gets in any small holes or cracks and eats the hull out from the inside out. Waves bend and flex the hull until stress cracks start to appear allowing more salt corrosion. Willing to bet these so called experts would have their panties in a wad when another massive oil spill occurs when a supertanker breaks in two off the Florida cost or some where else that they care about. If it is used as designed everything man made has a life span. Only some one foolish enough to risk a huge disaster pushes anything beyond its safe life limit.
Pull the engines. Cut 1200 holes in the sides for oars. Turn it into a Galley Ship for prisoners like the one in "Ben-Hur"
"Battle Speed, Hortator!"