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Amnesty international and greenpeace netherlands
Chapter 9
Authorities involved in decision-making about the Probo Koala and the waste Port State Control (also known as the Dutch Shipping Inspectorate) is part of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management Port State Control is responsible for the inspection of foreign ships in national ports to verify that the condition of the ship and its equipment comply with the requirements of international regulations and that the ship is staffed and operated in compliance with these rules.498 Port State Control has the authority to prevent ships from leaving a port and overall responsibility for implementation of International Maritime Organization (IMO) law and regulations, including MARPOL. Port of Amsterdam and Port Authority Director The Port of Amsterdam manages, operates and develops the Amsterdam port by order of the Amsterdam City Council. It is a governmental agency that operates in a commercial context. Department of Environment and Buildings of the Municipality of Amsterdam (Dienst Milieu en Bouwtoezicht or DMB) The Department of Environment and Buildings is part of the Amsterdam municipality and is responsible for enforcement, supervision and licence provision under Environment Management Law. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieu or VROM) This was the Ministry responsible for the environment in 2006. In 2010 it was merged with the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management into a new Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. VROM was responsible for implementation of the Basel Convention.
The complaints about the terrible stench linked to the waste, and Trafigura’s unusual request that the portion of waste that was on the APS barge be reloaded, resulted in numerous Dutch authorities becoming involved in a complex bureaucratic process. Over 3 and 4 July, the various state agencies and private companies involved discussed what to do with the waste: Trafigura wanted to take it away, but some state agencies raised queries about this.497 The end result of many discussions was that, late in the evening of 4 July, the Department of Environment and Buildings of the Municipality of Amsterdam, granted permission for APS to pump the waste back on to the Probo Koala, 499 and on 5 July the ship departed with the waste on board. While the ship’s next port of call was Paldiski in Estonia, it was clear that this was not the final destination of the waste.500
What the Dutch authorities knew when they let the waste go The fact that the Dutch authorities allowed the Probo Koala to leave Amsterdam with the waste on board was a serious error. While acknowledging that mistakes had been made, the Dutch authorities have defended the decision by stating that they were misinformed about the nature of the waste on board the Probo Koala.501 As noted above, Trafigura and the captain of the Probo Koala had claimed that the waste was MARPOL waste, which is waste that results from “the normal operations of a ship”. This would include such material as water from washing out tanks or residues from cargo the ship had transported.502 These wastes are fairly standard, and ports have specialized facilities to deal with them, but the waste on board the Probo Koala was not the result of the normal operations of a ship. It was the by-product of an industrial process, known by Trafigura to produce hazardous waste.503 The information provided by Trafigura and the captain of the Probo Koala, directly and via the port agents, Bulk Maritime Agencies (BMA), was not the only information that the authorities had when they made the decision to let the ship leave Amsterdam with the waste on board. The Dutch decisionmakers – at the point of letting the Probo Koala go – also had the following information: