The Chesapeake Bay has a dead zone which covers hundreds of square miles during the summer, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation website. However, that is due not to toxins from industrial pollutants, but to low oxygen conditions that arise from nitrogen-rich pollution coming mainly from farmlands and urban runoff, as well as via the air from vehicles, power plants and sewer treatment plants.

The Elizabeth River is currently undergoing a tributylin monitoring program, organized by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Virginia Department of Environment Quality. Tributylin is an anti-fouling chemical used on ships. In 1987 the Virginia legislature enacted legislation limiting its use on ships.

According to a map from the VIMS monitoring program website, there are heavy concentrations of the chemical in much of the Elizabeth River industrial area. However, it was not possible to identify where the Bay Bridge operation is in relation to the higher and lower levels of the chemical. And the Elizabeth River estuary is the home to one of the most heavily industrialized regions in the country. It is the site of the Norfolk Naval shipyard. Susan Mackert, the Water Compliance Officer with Virginia DEQ, says the vessels Bay Bridge works on have had not tributylin.

Still, according to the Scott Harper article, the biggest environmental threats from the ships are their waste oils, stored in tanks below the water line. These fuels are "highly toxic, often containing heavy metals and other contaminants that leach from the tanks," Harper reported.

The Navy shipyard is composed of three areas that total 1,275 acres. The Bay Bridge facility is near one of them. But where the Bay Bridge facility may employ 60 or 70 people, the Norfolk Naval shipyard employs thousands. And where Bay Bridge has worked on a handful of vessels over the past few years, the shipyard built, performed repairs on, and upgraded thousands of vessels since it was first opened in 1767. Employment at the Navy yard peaked at 43,000 workers during World War II, when the yard built nearly 30 major vessels and repaired and 6,850 other United States and Allied ships.

Environmentalists that watch the shipbreaking industry oppose the international movement of abandoned vessels - and, especially, their shipment to foreign shipbreaking yards without environmental or worker safety protections. They are working, along with negotiators from various countries, through the International Maritime Organization, to improve the existing 1989 Basel Treaty which governs the international transfer and disposal of mothballed ships.

On July 22, 2005, Greenpeace and BAN declared that India and Bangladesh shipyards "can no longer be considered a destination for any ship recycling operations," due to their "blatant disregard for environment, human rights and international law." According to a June 2001 article at the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) website, because shipbreaking is a labor-intensive business, the industry has its strongest presence in populous Asian countries. India breaks 42 percent of all vessels, the article said, Bangladesh seven percent, Pakistan six percent and China four.

Sarah Westervelt, a member of the Basel Action Network, when asked what her organization would like to see happen with the ships, replied, "We would like to see the U.S. toxic and obsolete ships be dismantled here in the U.S. If the ship is to be decontaminated here, and the toxins removed here, our organization would probably not oppose that. The damage happens when a company gets its hands on ships here and transports them to Third World countries, were they work on them on beaches, with poorly paid, poorly trained workers operating torches. They create explosions, deaths, and asbestos illnesses. ... We advocate that that work be done here."

According to the Greenpeace website, in 2003, a Greek-owned oil tanker exploded at a shipbreaking yard in India, killing nine workers and causing serious injuries to others. However, the website also indicated, green shipbreaking is not impossible. It noted the announcement in July 2005 that a zero pollution shipbreaking yard in the Netherlands had received funding and operations there are planned to start in 2007.

Michael Thompson, of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, responded to an e-mail inquiry from the News-Times about the environmental effects of the shipbreaking industry. "The fleet is being dismantled, although the schedule is a bit behind the original deadlines. The question, it seems are at least two: transporting the ships to Oregon will put pressure on the already rusting structures; when in Oregon, will the dismantling be done in a manner that will be environmentally secure? The Ghost Fleet did not get dismantled in the manner some of us have hoped, but it is being done and that is good. To have these vessels rusting away in the manner they were/are is just a disaster awaiting a large storm," he wrote.

Jim Puckett, coordinator for the Basal Action Network, thought it strange that the work is being proposed to be done in Newport. The ships, he said, are located in Suisun Bay, near San Francisco, and there is a site near there where the shipbreaking work could be done. 'It's crazy to do it in Newport."

The March 1, 2004 article by Scott Harper in the Virginian-Pilot noted, however, much of the work done on the five Ghost Fleet vessels in Virginia, was done "while the ships sit in the water." He reported that was "a fact that bothers some environmentalists," who worried wastes might fall into the Elizabeth River.

At that point, he wrote, "(Bay Bridge CEO) Dunavant scoffs at the criticism, saying that, if done correctly, there is little difference between wet and dry shipbreaking."

In the meeting at the Port of Newport last week, however, Dunavant assured the crowd the work would be done on land, on a 125-foot by 100-foot foot concrete pad, if his company were brought into the Yaquina Bay.