Judge rules "ghost fleet" violates pollution laws

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge found Thursday that a fleet of rotting warships anchored near San Francisco Bay is in violation of federal and state pollution laws.

Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. ruled in U.S. District Court in Sacramento that the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet was in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

Burrell wrote in a summary judgment that the U.S. Maritime Administration, the agency responsible for the ships, was breaking the law by continuing to allow paint from the obsolete vessels to flake off into the bay.

He also found that the flaking paint put the agency afoul of California hazardous waste regulations.

The Maritime Administration has recently started removing ships from the fleet following a years-long regulatory impasse.

Many of the mostly obsolete vessels in the 70-ship fleet have been anchored in the bay for decades in various states of disrepair.

A congressional order set a 2006 deadline to scrap more than 50 ships in the fleet. But a conflict between the federal agency and state water regulators over where and how the ships would be cleaned before they were dismantled kept them in place.

California officials and several environmental groups sued to force the Maritime Administration to take action. They argued that toxic heavy metals in the paints flaking off the ship were causing environmental damage to Bay Area waterways.

In October, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced new plans to begin cleaning up the ships by placing them in dry-dock, an approach state water regulators had pushed.

But state officials said they would continue to press the lawsuit to put legal force behind the government's stated commitment to get rid of all ships awaiting disposal.

The plaintiffs said they expected the case to go to trial in June to determine the scope of the cleanup measures following Thursday's ruling.

"We can't allow these vessels to contaminate the bay for another ten or twenty years," said Jason Flanders, a staff attorney with San Francisco Baykeeper, a plaintiff.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said in a statement that the Obama Administration remained committed to the cleanup of Suisun Bay.

"We know that many of these dilapidated ships pose a dangerous and unacceptable risk to the surrounding marine environment," he said.

So far, two ships have been removed from the fleet and towed to Texas for dismantling. Contracts have been awarded for the disposal of three more.