Taking stock of the "Ghost Fleet"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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The ghost fleet
 
Daily Press (VA)
Opinion
June 28 2004

With another hurricane season officially under way, it's time to take
stock of the ghost fleet. The count reveals that some of the derelict
hulks we hoped would be gone by now will most likely be with us for
another summer.

It's encouraging that the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, has
gotten more ships out of the James River since 2001 - 25 by its count -
than in previous years, when the inventory just kept climbing and along
with it the threat to life and property along the river. MARAD has spent
or committed the $31 million Congress awarded last year to scrap 25
vessels from the nation's stockpile of excess merchant ships, and it's
working on spending this year's $16 million allowance. Amid criticism of
the snail's pace of progress, MARAD staged a media event last week, with
Administrator William Schubert on site at the fleet, to announce a new
contract to get rid of three more. It will use that contract to make a
switch: hire a Texas yard to scrap three ships that were supposed to go
to England, and substitute other vessels when and if it gets the
go-ahead to send ships across the ocean. Contracts for more ships are
under negotiation.

Still, it's disheartening that those three, and others that were already
under contract, are still here to greet the new hurricane season. They
are among 13 vessels an English yard was hired to scrap, but nine have
yet to leave, and MARAD admits that it's unlikely they will depart for
England this year, their fate in legal limbo. Hence the need for a
backup plan.

...

for the entire editorial, see
http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-28837sy0jun28,0,96510.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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