SC’s no to toxic US ship’s entry into Indian ports

The Supreme Court on Monday refused permission to US toxic ship Oriental Nicety, which is involved in the worst oil spill disaster in Alaska in 1989, for beaching in Indian ports till it is properly decontaminated.

Updated on: May 7, 2012, 23:45:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Supreme Court on Monday refused permission to US toxic ship Oriental Nicety, which is involved in the worst oil spill disaster in Alaska in 1989, for beaching in Indian ports till it is properly decontaminated.

Oriental Nicety, also known as Exxon Valdez, entered Indian waters over a month ago and has been awaiting permission for entry into an Indian port. The ship is destined for breaking at the world’s biggest ship breaking yard in Alang, Gujarat, where a local agent bought it last week.

Sanjay Parekh of Research Foundation for Science had moved an application in the apex court, saying the ship should not be allowed to enter an Indian port as it has not been decontaminated.

Under the international treaty on trans-boundary movement of ships, the Basel Convention, the vessels, which have not been de-contaminated at the port of export, cannot be allowed entry to the waters of the developing countries.

Parekh claimed that the US ship had not been decontaminated in the port of export and it amounted to violation of the Basel convention.

The US had refused to sign the convention that prevents rich nations from dumping hazardous waste in ships in the developing countries. Many toxic ships from the US reach ports of the developing countries for breaking.

The court asked the central government to ensure that the ship is not allowed entry to any Indian port until it meets the Basel Convention guidelines and is decontaminated properly.

Gopal Krishna of NGO ToxicWatch said the ship could not be allowed entry as it violated Basel Convention and CBCB norms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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