SC’s no to US toxic ship in Indian ports

In a major setback to dirty ships from United States, the Supreme Court today refused permission to beaching of US toxic ship Oriental Nicety - involved in worst oil spill disaster in Alaska in 1989 - from beaching in Indian ports till it is pre-cleaned. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 7, 2012, 20:30:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a major setback to dirty ships from United States, the Supreme Court on Monday refused permission to beaching of US toxic ship Oriental Nicety - involved in worst oil spill disaster in Alaska in 1989 - from beaching in Indian ports till it is pre-cleaned.

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

Sanjay Parekh of Research Foundation for Science moved an application in the apex court saying that the ship, which has been involved in worst environmental disaster, should not be allowed to port as it has not been decontaminated.

Under the international treaty on trans-boundary movement of ships, the Basel Convention, ships, which are not de-contaminated at the port of import, cannot be allowed entry in water of the developing countries.

Parekh claimed that the US ship has not been de-contaminated in the port of export, which amounted to violation of the Basel convention, covering around 150 nations excluding United States.

US had refused to sign the convention that prevents rich nations to dump hazardous waste in ships in the developing countries. But, a large number of toxic ships from US reach ports of the developing countries for breaking.

The court, in its order, said the ship cannot be allowed to berth until its meets the Basel Convention. It also instructed the Central Government to ensure that the ship is not allowed to land in any Indian port until it is fully decontaminated to make it non-hazardous.

Oriental Nicety is an end of the life ship, which as per definition of the government’s Central Pollution Control Board is hazardous. Gopal Krishna of NGO ToxicWatch said that the ship cannot be allowed entry into Indian ports as it violates Basel Convention and CBCB norms.

Normally, a ship changes several hands before its final journey thereby estimating the amount of toxics in the ship difficult. It is for this reason the toxicity of Oriental Nicety is not known.

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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