From Lloyds List this week:
Greenlight India says Blue Lady can be scrapped
Shirish Nadkarni Mumbai
Wednesday 12 September 2007
INDIA’s Supreme Court has thrown a lifeline to the Ship Recycling Industries’ Association with yesterday’s decision to permit the demolition of Blue Lady, the controversial Norwegian cruiseship, writes Shirish Nadkarni in Mumbai.
“It would have been a huge predicament for us if the apex court had ruled against dismantling the ship,” said SRIA president Vishnu Gupta. “If the judges had handed down a decision against its recycling, the Blue Lady would have had to stay permanently at Alang, since it would have been almost impossible to float it again.”
The cruiseship, last owned by Malaysia’s Star Cruises, dropped anchor at Alang in August 2006 (see picture, above). During the course of the year, it has slid gradually out to sea and now lies nearly 1,500 ft from shore “making it almost impossible to move it”, Mr Gupta said.
Environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, obtained a stay order on the 46,000 dwt vessel’s demolition on the grounds that it carried more than 900 tonnes of toxic waste, such as asbestos and polychlorinated butyls, putting at risk the health of poorly equipped workers at the world’s largest shipbreaking yard.
The case against the Blue Lady hit the Supreme Court in June 2006, when the judges had allowed the vessel to enter Indian waters but ruled that it remain anchored off the coast of Gujarat until a final decision on the legal battle between environmentalists on the one side, and the ship’s owner and the Indian shipbreaking industry on the other.
The court appointed an expert committee to provide guidelines on how to safely dismantle all ships that come to India. The committee ended up recommending that certain procedures be followed to ensure worker safety, including decontamination before the breaking down of the ship, as well as proper disposal of any toxic waste.
“Since the court has accepted the technical expert committee report, we permit the Blue Lady to be dismantled,” said Supreme Court judge S H Kapadia. “The dismantling of the ship must be overseen by the district collector [the senior-most bureaucrat in the district].”
Mr Gupta claimed that the 25-year-old industry at Alang would have been faced with certain extinction if the Blue Lady decision had not gone in its favour. He said it could still die if the government failed to offer better incentives.
Greenpeace continues to assert that Indian demolition yards like Alang lack the technology to safely handle toxic waste in the ships they scrap. A 2005 report said that thousands of workers in the shipbreaking industry in countries like India, China and Pakistan may have died over the past two decades due to exposure to toxic waste or in accidents during the cutting up of vessels.
