One, the Jason, was cleaned Friday. Attempts were being made Monday to work on the other, the Queens Victory, said Rey Ramirez, harbormaster at the Port of Brownsville, Texas, where the ships are to be broken up.

"It's being done 25 to 50 miles out (in) international waters," Ramirez said Monday.

The Maritime Administration towed the ships from Suisun Bay in late December and early January as California clean water regulators were deciding whether to require permits for the work because of concerns about pollution.

Cleaning in open waters "is the cheap and dirty way out," an environmentalist said.

"They are doing it in a place where there is no law, but that doesn't mean there isn't an impact," said Jim Puckett of the Seattle-based Basel-Action Network, which monitors compliance with international environmental agreements.

Puckett said he also had concerns that cleaning in the Gulf could spread invasive species from California.

Recent international treaties aimed at curbing the maritime spread of invasive species require that ballast water be dumped at least 200 miles out in water at least 200 feet deep, Puckett said.

"This shouldn't be done so far in (toward the Texas and Mexico coasts). You have the Gulf shrimp industry right there," Puckett said.

Maritime administrator Sean Connaughton said late Monday the ships left California without cleaning in order to determine what marine growth on their hulls could survive the 45-day journey to Texas.

"We have little or no data on what is the potential for the transfer of sea life on the hull during the voyage," he said. "It was not our intention to do any cleaning on these vessels."

Texas officials asked that the ships be cleaned before entering state waters, and the administration agreed, Connaughton said.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board announced on Feb. 16 that tests showed that cleaning long-mothballed ships put copper, lead, zinc and other contaminates into the water. It said it would monitor work and require a system to clean up pollution.

The Coast Guard last year began increased enforcement of laws aimed at stopping the spread of invasive species.

"The Coast Guard considers the movement of heavily fouled (Maritime Administration) vessels from their fleet locations to other sites ... to constitute a risk of introducing potentially harmful aquatic organisms into U.S. waters," said Angela McArdle, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

Although it is preferable to do the work before the ships depart their home waters, federal law does not specifically block it from being done elsewhere, McArdle said Monday.

The Coast Guard cleared the Jason to enter the Port of Brownsville. The Queens Victory had not yet received clearance, McArdle said.

The Times reported in September that Coast Guard documents showed that large pieces of metal came off the hulls of two WWII Victory ships cleaned at the Port of Richmond in August.

The water board then began looking into the matter.

At least four ships were cleaned in Richmond and Alameda before the water board decided to impose pollution controls.