The 13 ships are under the jurisdiction of the United States Maritime Administration and are laden with 698 tons of PCBs, 1,402 tons of asbestos and 3,300 tons of old fuel oils.

The authorizations that have been declared invalid include the permit to increase the amount of waste materials handled at the site as well as the authorization to allow the importation of the waste, due to the fact that a promised 24 acre dry-dock facility does not in fact exist.

The environmental groups Friends of the Earth UK, Basel Action Network, Sierra Club and Earthjustice have been declaring for many weeks that the dry-dock facility promised by Able UK did not exist. These groups have also long claimed that the permits required to build a dry-dock had not been granted. These claims are now confirmed beyond doubt. The groups have also filed legal actions in the United States and United Kingdom regarding these illegal hazardous exports.

A US judge has thus far issued a temporary restraining order blocking 9 of the 13 vessels and allowing 4 to sail. MARAD has since agreed not to export any more of these vessels before first assessing all of the environmental risk for the benefit of the public. Meanwhile, the first four vessels are somewhere in the North Atlantic. What will happen next with these four vessels remains uncertain. They lack permission to enter UK waters and it is therefore likely they will be forced to return to the United States.

"These ships are the responsibility of the United States and should be returned to the US as safely and as soon as possible. All along we possessed the capacity and workforce to safely recycle these ships," said Puckett. "But the Bush Administration did another end run in around the public and environmental protection."

While the environmentalists believe that the four wayward vessels should be returned to the United States as soon and as safely as possible this should only be done under the following conditions:

The return voyage should not be in tandem. No further dangerous tandem towing operations should be allowed

The return voyage should only occur if weather conditions are very favorable.

An emergency response vessel should escort the four vessels for the entire return voyage.

If favorable weather conditions will not occur until the spring, the vessels should be over-wintered in a US military port in Europe.

"Hopefully, the United States will now embrace the policy of self-sufficiency in hazardous waste management as called for in international law," said Jim Puckett. "Surely the richest country in the world, should be at the front of the line of those countries that have the capacity and resources to fulfill this worthy goal."