Press Releases - ABLE

COUNCIL UNDER FIRE OVER SHIPS CONTRACT ‘MISREPRESENTATIONS’
09/09/03

The Managing Director of Able UK has today (September 9th) strongly refuted what he described as ‘the cynical attempts by various interests to use whatever misrepresentations and distortions they can find to prevent work and jobs coming to the Tees Valley—and to find the best environmental solution to the disposal of redundant shipping.’

Mr Peter Stephenson said he was particularly appalled that Durham County Council has issued a News Release over the company’s plans to recycle redundant American merchant ships which he said ‘contained statements which have no basis in fact and use language which seems deliberately designed to cause totally unjustified alarm.’

He also stressed that the company was completely committed to working with agencies such as English Nature and to using the best possible techniques for handling the 13 vessels which are scheduled to come to TERRC (Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre) at Graythorp under a contract agreed with the United States Marine Administration (MARAD).

Said Mr Stephenson “I suppose that after the lurid headlines and distortions of recent weeks, I should not be surprised at anything, but I am frankly shocked that Durham County Council should have made such totally misleading statements in a News Release issued in the name of its Cabinet Member for the Environment.

“I do not know on what basis Councillor Pendlebury ‘understands’ that the vessels are to be ‘moored offshore until they can be dry docked for dismantling.’ The facts are that the TERRC facility is able to handle all 13 vessels at the same time and, as we have made clear time after time, the facility will be sealed and drained in order that that the work can be carried out to the highest safety and environmental standards.

“To use phrases such as ‘toxic armada’ and ‘deadly flotilla’ may gain a few headlines but again they are a totally distortion of reality. Councillor Pendlebury suggests this is a case of ‘jobs versus the environment’ but the opposite is the case.

“The truth of the matter is that dismantling these vessels in what is one of the best facilities in the world is far preferable to the fate of very many other ships which end their days either being sent to the bottom of the ocean, or with the risk of appalling pollution problems in a third world country where they are literally ripped apart with no proper health or safety controls.

“At the same time we are bringing hundreds of jobs to the region and further strengthening our position as a world-class centre for the marine decommissioning and recycling industry.

“Our determination to observe the highest possible standards is the reason we are seeking to use a state-of-the-art ‘coffer dam’ for sealing the facility once the vessels have arrived. However, if that does not prove possible, we can operate perfectly satisfactorily with a more traditional type of bund.

“We also made absolutely clear that previous undertakings we have given to English Nature and other agencies in relation to protecting wildlife in the area will be fully met as they have been in the past.”

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