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the toxic truth
chapter 7
Some within the company appear to have been indifferent about what would become of the ship transporting the waste:
““
5k per day I think you are dreaming as this is the opex costs of a vessel like this in WAF [West Africa] and if you add amortization of current scrap prices you get over double then that to start with. In addition that implies you do not want insurance class p &I and 329 you do not care if she sinks.
”
Internal emails also raise questions about whether Trafigura was trying to avoid regulatory scrutiny of its unprecedented activity on a ship. An email dated 21 June 2006 suggests that Trafigura had also considered storing the coker naphtha in the UK port of Milford Haven, but rejected this:
““ We should store the PMI crap on a ship in Gibraltar rather than take it to Milford Haven. Reasons are as follows… Milford will require at least one approval. The bucket in Gib will require no 330 such thing.
”
Amnesty International and Greenpeace have asked Trafigura to explain the content of these emails, but the company did not respond. In the end, Trafigura went ahead with its decision to carry out caustic washing on board a ship without having identified any safe means of dealing with the waste material that it was about to produce.
The Bay and Rock of Gibraltar. © Greenpeace/Sara del Río
Gaps in governance: the Mediterranean area and Gibraltar waters There is no effective, integrated system of environmental governance in the Mediterranean. The present situation is characterized by a patchwork of legal and jurisdictional regimes that establish competencies on different issues and in different parts of the sea, from coastal waters and territorial seas to ecological and fisheries protection zones and the international waters of the high seas. Unlike other maritime regions, many Mediterranean coastal states have not declared Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), which means that a large part of the Mediterranean is still beyond the jurisdiction of any individual Mediterranean state. As a consequence, there has been a lack of effective control of and responsibility for the marine environment. Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have expressed concern about serious gaps in regulatory oversight associated with shipping activity in waters around Gibraltar. In 2010, 112,843 vessels crossed the Strait of Gibraltar,331 the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. There is a longstanding disagreement between Spain and the UK about the jurisdiction of these waters. This disagreement, combined with intense business competition between the nearby Spanish Port of Algeciras and the Port of Gibraltar, has resulted in a situation where regulation is lax.332 Both ports compete in the market for ships to enter the bay for port operations, especially for bunkering, but there is a lack of co-ordination between the port authorities. Failures in communication between the two port authorities have led to a number of environmental disasters, such as the collision between the cargo ship New Flame and the oil tanker Torm Gertrud in August 2007, which resulted in a major oil spill. The problem is compounded by the fact that Gibraltar enjoys a special European Union (EU) status, under which certain rules do not apply, including some concerning environmental protection.333 As a consequence, Gibraltar waters have acquired a reputation for irregular port operations and activities that could not take place elsewhere in the EU. Because of the serious environmental and human consequences of the regulatory gaps, Greenpeace advocates governance reform, including a joint monitoring, control, surveillance and compliance mechanism for the Mediterranean. Greenpeace also advocates for a biodiversity agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to address the global gaps in oceans governance.334