Five rusted old vessels from the infamous Ghost Fleet, known formally as the James River Reserve Fleet, are being gutted of their toxic innards here. By summer, they will have been reduced to thousands of chunks of steel, each the size of a doorstop.

What will remain of these antique giants ­ cargo ships, retired Navy
warriors, gray support vessels, all more than 500 feet long ­ will be sold as scrap, their 50-year-old fuels recycled or burned, their massive hulls gone but for the memories of former sailors.

Mike Dunavant is the general manager of Bay Bridge Enterprises , the Chesapeake salvage yard dismantling the ships under a $2.7 million government contract.

Dunavant is a former history teacher who fell into shipbreaking by chance, though he now walks along the dirt-lined docks and talks into his dusty two-way radio like an old pro.

“Yeah, well, we're out here near the drag-up slip with a couple reporters,” he said into the black radio that had just rung with yet another message from his secretary. “Tell 'em I'll have to get with 'em later.”

Bay Bridge Enterprises is the only Virginia yard that won a contract last year from the U.S. Maritime Administration to break Ghost Fleet ships with money approved on Capitol Hill. Congress has set a deadline of 2006 to dispose of more than 70 obsolete vessels parked in storage in the middle of the James River, off Fort Eustis in Newport News.

Bay Bridge, along with its New Jersey-based environmental specialist, Clean Venture , has bid to dismantle up to seven more ships this coming fiscal year.

Congress recently appropriated $16 million to keep the cleanup effort going.

French and German TV news crews have visited the Chesapeake yard since its initial award last fall. They wanted to know the same thing: Are Dunavant and other American shipbreakers mad at their British competitors for “taking” their work?

The reference is to a controversial, $17 million contract between the
Maritime Administration and Able UK, a British salvage yard, to cut up as many as 13 ships towed across the Atlantic to Teesside , England, off the North Sea.

The deal is being challenged by environmentalists in American and British courts, and remains in limbo, even as four ships that survived the ocean crossing sit anchored near Able UK's docks.

A federal judge in Washington next month will hear arguments from the Sierra Club and two other groups that the shipments violate national and international environmental law. Like Dunavant, the activists want the ships dismantled in America.

“They don't want our hazardous waste in their country,” Dunavant said of British opposition. “And, you know, it's a fair argument. How do you think Americans would react if the British wanted to bury their PCBs, their asbestos, in our soil?”

PCBs and asbestos are just two of the toxic materials stuffed inside the old ships. PCBs (short for polychlorinated biphenyls ) are thought to cause cancer and were used in wiring and gauges.

Asbestos, also carcinogenic, was wrapped around pipes and mixed into floor tiles and walls, as a flame retardant.

The wastes are being yanked from the ships, wire by wire, tile by tile, by teams of workers who wear respirators and plastic, protective suits. Dunavant said Clean Venture has hired about 45 workers, most of them local, to complete the dirty, hard job.

After they finish their shifts, the laborers must remove their coveralls
and wash off in a decontamination trailer, built inside a fenced-in square along the docks. Warning signs and safety reminders are fastened to the shiny chain-link fence. A guard with a clipboard and red flag controls access.

Clarence LaMora , operations manager for Clean Venture, described how the hazardous wastes are to be handled: They are double-bagged, tied and stored away from the docks in separate cargo containers.

Once the metal containers are full, trucks haul them to certified waste
sites on the East Coast. Their weights, dates of removal and destinations are logged onto reams of records, which government inspectors can easily check.

The asbestos is going to a special landfill in King and Queen County in Eastern Virginia. Lead-paint chips, vacuumed from decks and steel sidings, are being taken to a hazardous-waste landfill in Pennsylvania . The PCBs are going to a toxic dump in New York , LaMora said.

The biggest environmental threats from the ships, he said, are their waste oils, stored for decades in tanks below the water line.

The fuels are highly toxic, often containing heavy metals and other
contaminants that have leached from the tanks. If spilled through holes in th inning hulls, the wastes could threaten waterways and wildlife, LaMora said.

One study suggested that if just two ships anchored in the James River were to spill their contents, as much as 50 miles of historic waters would be tainted, including those touching nature sanctuaries, Jamestown Island and key shellfish grounds.

Earlier this month, workers were removing black oily water from dark holds within the Robert C. Conrad , a support ship built in 1962 . The liquid was being pumped through a thin hose, not unlike what motorists put in their cars at gas stations, leading to a green fuel truck parked along the water. A worker sat and watched for leaks. He wore a hard hat and looked bored.

“It's not much to see,” Dunavant said while observing the scene. “But it's important work, and we've got to have all safety precautions in place.”

The scrapping is being monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Maritime Administration, the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, among other regulators.

The state initially wanted Bay Bridge Enterprises to apply for an
individual environmental permit for the shipbreaking ­ a process that could have taken months; after all, the yard has almost no experience with shipbreaking. But state officials relented after Clean Venture was hired and promised “zero discharges” to the Elizabeth River, according to case records.

Clean Venture was the environmental contractor that helped scrub the Coral Sea, a Navy warship, and has experience in abating asbestos, swabbing oil spills and decontaminating soils. It has opened a Chesapeake branch office, mostly to oversee the Ghost Fleet work.

On July 1 , Virginia is scheduled to enact new rules governing industrial wastewater. LaMora and state officials said the changes will not directly affect Bay Bridge Enterprises because it already employs tough controls that meet the new standards.

“We've been satisfied with their performance to date,” said James R. McConathy , water permit manager for the state environment department.

Much of the work is being done while the ships sit in the water ­ a fact that bothers some environmentalists. They fear that wastes might fall into the Elizabeth River, and say dry docks would be safer. Dunavant scoffs at the criticism, saying that, if done correctly, there is little difference between wet and dry shipbreaking.

The five ghost ships ­ Catawba Victory (built in 1945) , Marine Fiddler (1945) , Petrel (1946), Opportune (1945) , and the Conrad (1962) ­ will be dragged onto a muddy beach at the edge of the yard and cut up with hydraulic sheers, like giant scissors. It is similar to what the British yard would do, if its contract clears legal challenges.

One big difference, however, is that Able UK still does not have all of its government permits in hand, and the British Environment Agency has instructed the yard to go back and reapply for at least one key approval, saying it was misled about certain aspects of the work.

Bay Bridge Enterprises did not want to make the same mistakes, and spent nearly a year lining up approvals before bidding on the federal contract. It has invited inspectors to the site, and has set up a work trailer at its docks for government overseers to use.

“People thought we were crazy for being so open,” Dunavant said. “There was a time in this industry that you kept your mouth shut and didn't tell anyone what you were up to, including talking to the press.” He then smiled, and handed hard hats to visiting reporters.

“But we're changing that. Let's go see some ships!”

Reach Scott Harper at 446-2340 or scott.harper@pilotonline.com

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