The History of the Ghost Ships at the Teesside Environment Reclamation and Recycling Centre (TERRC) site at Graythorp, Hartlepool

By Peter Tweddle, Hartlepool Friends of the Earth.

To write this historical record I have had to go through old detailed documents as I was not part of the early opposition to these ships. I have however had the facts checked for accuracy by some of the early protagonists, who have corrected me as necessary.

In 2003 Able UK Ltd, controversially, got a contract to break 13 US naval ships. I say controversially because a number of American ship-breakers had, it is said, put in higher contract bids but the work had gone to Able. This point has always been an unsolved mystery to us!

Able UK had a licence to break small marine structures and small ships, and it was felt at the time that this was sufficient to carry out the breaking of the 13 ships. This belief was also held by the Environment Agency at that time. So Able UK were right to claim they could do the work at that point. However in fact, Able had no dry dock and it was hard to see how they were intending to break the ships, and if the Basel Action Network (BAN, an organisation in America) had not flagged up this project it would have gone ahead with all its faults.

The Basel Convention was set up to stop the cross-border transportation of dangerous materials, intended to protect third world countries. It does however allow this to happen to developed countries, such as Britain, if all licences are in place. America said the Convention did not apply to ships to be scrapped and a great deal of argument led to new rules being applied. I know some of you may say I have over simplified this, but I feel a fuller explanation could be handled separately.

Having been informed by BAN of these ships, the Teesside branch of Impact took a look at what was being planned with the help of Friends of the Earth, in London. Having looked at the plans and licences, Friends of the Earth saw that they contained inadequacies and so they went into action. They warned all bodies concerned, the Environment Agency (EA), Hartlepool Council and the Government of what was planned and of the dangers if they went ahead.

Having had it pointed out to them, and after consultation, the EA agreed that the licence was inadequate and a new Planning Permission and Licence should be sought by Able UK. The EA spoke to various bodies, including the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and it was decided that the ships were in fact illegal and should not be brought to England.

The EA wrote to Marad (United States Maritime Administration) in the USA on the 3rd, 8th and 10th of October 2003 telling them the ships were illegal and they should not be sent. Marad ignored this instruction and the ships were towed to our shores. The first two departed on the 7th of October and the second two on the 17th of October 2003. A high handed act you may feel! We certainly do! Marad later admitted what they had done and promised that the ships would be returned in the spring of 2004. This is the first of many promises made which would not be kept.

In the meantime the people of Hartlepool were getting organised in their opposition to these ships, and the local branch of the Hartlepool and North Tees Friends of the Earth began protesting. From my stand point I must say that all involved must be commended for the work and organisation they put in, and its effect can be seen in the standards that are being set for the breaking of ships at the TERRC.

But I am getting ahead of the story! The really remarkable achievement the protestors made in that first few months was to win a case in the House of Lords which declared those ships to be illegal and that they must be returned. This was reiterated by the UK Environment Secretary, Margaret Becket, in the House of Commons. So the protesters felt they had won the day, but sadly in our society it seems being that right is not the same as might, and might won the day! When Peter Mandleson MP championed the cause of Able UK against the express wishes of the electorate, the agenda had already been set and we would be made to comply.

Now let me set out the plan which Able then proposed, and which we opposed and why.

These ships, and the others proposed to be broken there, have within them hundreds of tons of asbestos and dangerous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which you may be aware are cancer forming. They can be removed safely, as I know because I was for a number of years an offshore Safety Officer, so I knew the way it can be done without danger to the workers. It was actually on this point that I got involved, thinking I could reassure people that there was little to fear from the removal of these materials.

Then I heard about Seaton Meadows, the place where it was proposed these dangerous materials were to be landfilled and my attitude changed. This site is about half a mile from where the people of Seaton Carew live, and an obvious danger to our health. So I became active in the group and took on the job of Admin Coordinator. Really, our main opposition to this scheme has been the bringing of waste materials to our town - and not just "yank" toxins, but everybody's!

There seems to be persistent belief that if you have nasties which you don't want dumped in your backyard, then send them to Hartlepool! However we in Hartlepool, in our opposition to this, are acting out of character! At least, this is the view according to some people's beliefs, including our past MP, who seems to have had nothing but contempt for us! How can you turn round this belief: this has been our dilemma!

Able UK's planning Applications

The application the company put in was to break all ships world wide, including naval ships, and so a number of applications went in from 2003 until its final acceptance by the EA and Natural England in the summer of 2006. We had put in a number of objections, mostly with the protection of humans in mind but the Greater Crested Newt, as you may be aware, has more pulling power humans have when you want stop a plan . . . . people are expendable.

The dock was made about 80 years ago by Grays Shipbuilders, and was a small yard used for repairing ships. In the 1970s, after years of disuse, it was turned into a dry dock by Laings Offshore as a site for where the legs of offshore platforms were constructed. When Laings were finished with it, it again fell into disrepair, until Able UK took over the site in the 1980s in order to dismantle small marine materials has I have earlier said. The dock gates were unusable by now and scrapped, and the dock has been flooded ever since.

Surrounding the dock we have world renowned nature areas protected by SSSI, SPA and Ramsar status, so you can see the problems Able UK have faced in getting their plans accepted. Indeed you wonder why they were not told immediately that the plan was impractical given all the unnecessary risks it would bring. This did not happen, and we always ask why. There is a determination to make this square peg fit into a round hole, and nothing is to stop it.

The plan is to build a dam across the entrance to the dock and, with the ships to be broken already inside, pump out the water, decontaminate the dock, and then break the ships.

On completion, the dock will be cleaned of all contaminants, the dam re-opened and the dock re-flooded. We say to decontaminate the dock is nearly impossible given the nature of the dock stonework and the porous materials which the dock bottom is made of, and remember the ships are in the dock during this process.

To access the dock is via Seaton Channel and it is necessary to dredge it. Due to industrial work that as gone around the Tees over the centuries the estuary and channel contains many dangerous contaminants such as mercury, lead, arsenic and many more, including fertilisers that make fish change sex. After removal of the capital dredge this material will, with Defra's permission, be dumped in the North Sea. This fact we found to be shocking - that we can dump poisons in our sea, which must kill fish and will get into the food chain. We asked if Europe were aware of this and if they gave their approval? We feel not!

We pointed out the impracticality of the plan, and made all the comments I am sure are being raised in your mind as you read. We felt it fell on deaf ears.

Natural England were concerned that they will lose some tidal flats, and only removed their objections when Able promised to buy another site to compensate. We did not approve but there was little we could do. They seem to be content that ships will come within their nature reserve with alien marine growth on their hulls with unknown consequences. The Americans will not allow ships to go from one river to another within their own country, because of cross contamination, and we are accepting the whole world's pollutants; that is the plan.

If the Great Crested Newt was dying at the rate of deaths in Hartlepool there would be a great outcry, and a nature programme would be made condemning all concerned. Hartlepool has the highest death rate in England and Wales, and I bet you did not know that because it is not newsworthy. Hartlepool people dying is just an uninteresting fact, unless you live here of course. So we made the point that we did not need more toxins and we are dying fast enough, but really nobody cares! Mr. Smith of the Inspectorate gave an impatient shrug, and said that this plan would not make it worse. What god-like certainties some people have!

We complained of noise, dust due to road transport through the town, the dangerous materials being landfilled on our doorstep, and of course the danger to our nature reserve which brought 26,000 visitors to the area last year. We felt the new facilities at the Saltholme Nature Study Centre would bring more prosperity to the town, and this plan would hinder it.

We also, on every available occasion, made the point that the people of Hartlepool had totally rejected this scheme and had voted against it by 90% in every straw poll held.

Being naïve, I thought that when a society overwhelmingly rejected something then a council had no mandate to allow it to go ahead, however wrong that society may be. I was wrong. The wishes of the people carry no power, and only the wishes of those in control decide. This scheme has been rejected in an area with high unemployment, so you can see the level of anger it has brought, so much so that my feeling is there will be a political back lash which will centre on the government incumbent. We will see!

Planning Applications and Appeal

I hope that gives you enough of a picture to see where we stood on 12th October 2006 when the planning Application was finally heard by Hartlepool Council.

Able UK made their case, and we objected. The Council's Planning Department discussed it, and we could feel we were to win the day. The Planning Department rejected the scheme 11 to 1, an overwhelming victory for us, the people of Hartlepool. I feel the Council members who voted were reflecting the will of the people they represented and in this they were right.

We had gone into the meeting with doubt because the Planning Dept had been told, by their professional advisors, that they must accept the plan.

We have always said that making a statement, in public, that a Planning Department must accept a plan was an improper act, and that the people who made this public statement were usurping the power of the Planning Department. The professional advisors should have presented the plan, which was now ready for deliberation, and that was all they should have publicly said.

When this plan was rejected, Able were in the position to appeal because the Planning Department had gone against a clear instruction to give permission. The professional advisors to Hartlepool Council had, in making their public statement, made it impossible to refuse and impossible to defend.

Able UK waited until early summer 2007 to lodge an appeal against the refusal to grant planning permission. This was scheduled to be heard on 9th October 2007.

We made our preparations to oppose the appeal, and applied to do this under section 6(6) which allows you to prepare and put a full case asking questions and calling expert advice. At this stage we thought we would be backing the case laid by Hartlepool Council and their legal team and prepared with that in mind.

The Council drew up a list of reasons for refusal, and tourism, town image, noise, dust were the main thrust of their stance. But in the early summer of this year (2008) they held a secret meeting behind closed doors, and it was decided that they could not defend their decision to refuse the Planning Application.

This was a daunting blow to our planned strategy and so we had to re-think our approach as main objectors. We had no experience of appeal procedures and we knew what was ranged against us.

So a number of lay people like ourselves were left to mount an opposition against an array of expert witnesses paid for by Able UK. A David and Goliath battle without the heroic outcome I am afraid!

Able UK, as you can well understand following the Council verdict, put in another application which was held on the 5th of October. The Planning Committee decided that as the Appeal was to be heard the next week, and there were a number of points they felt needed clarifying, they deferred their decision.

Financed by national Friends of the Earth, we got the services of Mr Tim Deere-Jones, an estuarine expert, who did a valiant job of countering the very able and respected Mr Pethick. Without going into detail, you can imagine the difficulty we had when faced with a very impressive legal team and experts on every conceivable subject . . . who will the chairman believe?

So Mrs Iris Ryder, Mrs Jean Kennedy and, for a time, Mike Young of Friends of Hartlepool, along with Mrs Evelyn Leck and myself from the Local Group of FOE fought what we felt was losing battle. It was a hard process for us, as you can imagine!

The Appeal was scheduled to last 4 weeks, with a pause on the third week and final statements of the fourth. Imagine our surprise when the Council called another planning meeting on the application during the third week and before the completion of procedures! On the agenda was a new application by Able UK for planning permission at their TERRC site. Earlier in the day, another secret meeting had been held from which we were informed the individual members of the Committee were warned against another refusal. So that afternoon permission was granted.

We know that all that has happened over the last few months has been badly done, with wrong advice to councillors, secret meetings, poor preparedness to oppose the plan, being outsmarted by Able on every turn and the Council not having the finances to defend their decision. And the most damning thing of all, the Council being unable to carry out the wishes of the public they serve.

We feel that it should not be down to rate payers to finance the Inquiry into any scheme that is put forward to a Town Council; it should be down to the applicant to provide the finance for a totally independent assessment of that scheme.

Able UK are now asking for the money they had to outlay back from the rate payers; talk about a double whammy!

Finally I would like to say how totally let down we feel. Let down by the Environment Agency and Defra, for allowing the Ghost Ships to come here in the first place. We feel if they had not come the whole process would not have gone ahead!

Let down again by the EA and the Government who, having won the case in the House of Lords, did not require the ships to be returned to the USA.

Let down by both our MPs, the first for championing the cause of Able UK, and the second for his lack of support of his constituents, even though they both knew of their strong objections.

Let down by our Town Council for making such a ham-fisted attempt at opposing these plans; which borders on the criminal.

Last month Alab, who run the Seaton Meadow tip and are a subsidiary company of Able UK, was taken to court by EA and fined £26,000 for asbestos infringements in 2005 and 2006. As you can see, this was not brought to court until after the appeal was heard! The Environment Agency warned no one, not the HSE or the council. This was evidence we could have used but was withheld from us.

But on the more serious side, we were not made aware the there had been asbestos contamination of the Seaton Meadow tip and that no precautions were taken. The question is, how can we be confident of the authorities, who are meant to look after our welfare, if this is their response to a very serious breach of a licence?

During the hearing we were criticised for our lack of confidence in these bodies by Mr Smith, the Planning Inspector. We could not make him see why.

We awaited the outcome of the appeal without a great deal of confidence. The decisions were made long ago, and the delay was simply to give the impression of due process. And so the objection failed and the project is going ahead.

As we feared, this will mean that we will take ships from all over the world, and we are about to get the French aircraft carrier, Clemenceau. Because of its size, it can only be got into the dock on a spring tide which proves what we have always said - the site is not ideal!

And we are now informed that there are two species alien to our shores attached to the bottom of this ship - Asian Seaweed, Lamimaria Japonica, and the Common Atlantic Slipper Snail, called Carepidula Formicata. Now this begs the question what is attached to the bottom of the four US Naval ships which were brought here in such haste?

Surely the Slipper Snail which is endemic to the USA! We have asked in the past and had vague assurances, which gave us no confidence, then! It confirms our worse fears, now!

January, 2009