That policy is keeping 19 of 83 ships in the James River Reserve Fleet, or ghost fleet, from being scrapped.

But the military insists it has no use for any of the ships.

"We have no requirement for any of those ships whatsoever," Air Force Gen.
John W. Handy, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, said in recent congressional testimony. "No requirement whatsoever."

Handy, whose Illinois-based command provides air, land and sea transportation for the military in peacetime and wartime, said in a follow-up interview that he could not think of any military rationale to justify keeping the ships.

"The issue is, how do you get rid of them," he said.

The insistence by the Maritime Administration on keeping the ships - at least temporarily - further delays a years-long effort to remove environmentally hazardous and largely obsolete ships from the James.

The Maritime Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is under pressure to meet a congressional mandate requiring the disposal of all obsolete ships in the James by Sept. 30, 2006.

Ships marked for retention because of their military value or other potential emergency uses would not need to meet the 2006 deadline.

"I have a concern if there are ships that would be scrapped and they're just not labeling them for that," said Virginia Rep. Jo Ann S. Davis, R-Gloucester, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who is pushing to remove the ghost fleet.

"I don't want to get stuck with ships just sitting there because we haven't classified them right."

The Maritime Administration, or MARAD, defended its handling of the ships.

In some cases, the agency said, ships are held in retention at the recommendation of the Defense Department.

"In almost all circumstances, we follow those recommendations," said Robyn Boerstling, a MARAD spokeswoman.

Of the 19 retention ships in the James, six still have military value as cargo ships, Boerstling said, although she could not explain the Pentagon's apparent contradiction.

The six ships, she said, "are not directly figured into the operational equation, but they are there and ready if the situation arises."

Another four ships, she said, have specific functions. One is held for nonmilitary emergencies, a second is held for spare equipment, a third is kept as a military training platform and a fourth, the Savannah, is kept for historic purposes.

Boerstling could not justify the value of the remaining nine retention ships but said they are in the process of being reclassified for disposal.

The reclassification process, she said, includes a review of the value of spare parts the ships may contain that could be militarily useful.

Some of those parts, she said, could be used to maintain the Ready Reserve Force, a separate fleet of ships that are kept at high levels of readiness to respond to emergencies and conflicts around the globe. There are three Ready Reserve Force ships in the James, Boerstling said, but they are not part of the 19 retention ships at issue.

Handy, the head of Transportation Command, confirmed the need for the Ready Reserve Force ships. Those ships, also managed by MARAD, have been used to support ongoing United Nations missions in the Balkans and an aid mission to Haiti, among other things.

"Strategic sealift is critical to our nation's power projection strategy,"
Handy told Congress. "The increased readiness standards and maintenance of our Ready Reserve Force have made it more efficient and better able to meet lift requirements than ever before."

With 19 ships still held in retention, MARAD has only 64 ships in the James River Reserve Fleet that must be scrapped, not counting a few ships that may already be under contract for disposal, according to the agency's figures.

Ridding the James of these ships has proved a time-consuming, costly and contentious political battle.

Despite tens of millions of dollars in new funding from Congress to pay for the scrapping work in the last few years, most of the ships still sit idle.

Last summer, MARAD had hoped to break a logjam by signing a $17.8 million contract to remove 15 vessels, of which 13 would be towed to Great Britain for disposal.

That deal triggered vocal protests in Britain and lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic, which are still pending. Even as the first four ships were en route to England, the British government withdrew its permission for the project to proceed. Those four ships now sit in legal limbo on the English coast, while the nine other ships scheduled to be towed overseas remain in the James as the courts decide what to do.

The ships, some of which date to World War II, are chock-full of toxic PCBs, asbestos and other hazardous materials. Some have hulls so thin they can be pierced with a hammer, officials have said. Crews must patch holes to prevent oil spills or a quick sinking.

One bad hurricane, officials fear, could turn the James into an environmental disaster zone.

In addition to the James River ships, MARAD has a reserve fleet in California's Suisun Bay of 35 ships. About half of those - 18 ships - are classified for retention.

The Beaumont Reserve Fleet in Texas has 69 ships, of which 14 are retention ships, MARAD figures show.

Together, the three reserve fleets make up the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

dlerman@tribune.com, (202)824-8224