hkskyline
June 14th, 2005, 08:17 AM
FOCUS: French Up Stakes In Fight Against Tanker Pollution
By David Gauthier-Villars
13 June 2005
BREST, France (Dow Jones)--From this Atlantic port city on the western tip of France, Francois Nicot is hunting down ships dumping oil residue as they skirt around Brittany.
With new legal tools and surveillance aircraft, over the past two years the Brest district attorney and counterparts in other regions in France have charged nearly 50 captains with polluting the seas within 200 nautical miles of the country's coastline.
"We're showing them the stick," says Nicot, dubbed the French Eliot Ness by local media after the U.S. lawman who fought against Chicago mobsters in the 1920s.
But captains and shipping companies complain they're being unfairly treated, sometimes tried, convicted and penalized on evidence as flimsy as a shiny streak of water in their wakes.
French authorities moved to fight sea polluters after two oil spills tarnished France's coastline, in December 1999 and in November 2002, sparking strong resentment among the general public. While not as attention-grabbing as massive accidental spills from oil tankers, prosecutors say illegal dumping of engine residue takes a toll on French waters and beaches as some crews throw away oil waste that is supposed to be disposed of at port.
France is following the lead of the U.S., which cracked down on the industry in the late 1980s, after the Exxon Valdez gushed 37,000 metric tons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, and again in the late 1990s after cruise ships discharged toxic wastes in the Caribbean. Congress enacted the Oil Pollution Act in 1990, giving the U.S. Coast Guard more power to control shipping and increasing civil penalties for oil spills.
With Spain and Portugal, also hit hard in November 2002 when the Prestige oil tanker broke up off southern Europe's Atlantic Ocean coastline, France now is lobbying for tougher rules against polluters within the European Union.
So far, the three countries have convinced the E.U. to adopt regulations aimed at gradually banning single-hull tankers and preventing ships deemed dangerous from sailing in European waters. The E.U. also has set up the European Maritime Safety Agency, in part to ensure ships have facilities to dispose of their wastes properly at port.
In February, the European Parliament passed a draft directive that classifies deliberate pollution such as dumping oil residue as a criminal offense, which would allow offenders to be jailed. Under French law, a jail sentence of up to 10 years can be imposed on a captain only if the ship carries a French flag or the pollution occurs close to shore in territorial waters.
Greece, Malta and Cyprus - Europe's leading nations operating flagged ships - are expected to try to block the directive at a June 27 meeting of E.U. transport ministers, who must approve the bill before it goes into force.
"Shipping is an international activity and needs global, rather than regional regulations," says Ioannis Kourouniotis, head of the maritime transport department at Greece's diplomatic mission in Brussels. Greece says the proposed directive could harm its shipping industry, saying that youngsters won't take up seafaring for fear they can end up behind bars.
Prosecutors say illegal dumping is a major cause of sea pollution. The E.U. estimates that large cargo and freight ships discharge more oil every year than comes from oil tankers accidentally running aground or breaking apart, though the exact amount of oil dumped can't be quantified.
On satellite snapshots, some sections of European waters appear like polka dot shirts with hundreds of so-called "orphan" spills. Most ships run on bunker fuel - cheap, heavy fuel oil that generates waste when refined onboard. To save time and money, some ships dump bunker fuel residue or, more often, their bilge - a mix of water and oil emanating from the engine room.
French authorities have put in place one of Europe's most aggressive legal strategies. Prosecutors don't waste much time investigating how the pollution occurred or whether a captain acted on his own or carried out orders of his shipping company. An aerial picture of a spill can be enough to convict a captain of pollution, while most other European courts would require additional evidence, such as samples of the residue. A French judge can impose fines of up to EUR1 million, even if only a small amount of waste is dumped.
In 2003, France decided to enforce the tougher regulation in its so-called exclusive economic zone, which extends up to 200 nautical miles off the country's coasts rather than just within its 12-mile territorial waters. To accelerate legal proceedings, power to prosecute in the Atlantic, the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea were transferred from Paris to three regional offices in Brest, Le Havre and Marseille.
From Brest, Nicot is monitoring one of the world's busiest maritime routes, with some 200 large ships sailing to or from Northern Europe every day in an area as large as the state of Arizona. Aircraft fitted with infrared cameras now can detect oil during day-time flights and the country's customs service plans to start operating a new plane later this year that can also spot violations at night.
"We suspect that a lot of captains dump waste in the dead of night, when they know we can't see them," says Nicot.
Once a surveillance aircraft has spotted an alleged spill in the wake of a ship, he orders the vessel to stop at the nearest French port and won't release it until a hefty bail is paid, pending court proceedings.
"Our new approach is very pragmatic," Nicot says from his office overlooking the Brest port. "We hit where it hurts."
In the past, the district attorney says he often struggled to charge anyone, as ship owners hid behind a maze of holding companies. But now, faced with the mounting costs associated with an immobilized ship, owners or their insurers often wire money for the bail without delay.
"In one case, I received the payment less than 45 minutes after I had impounded the vessel," he says, declining to identify the shipping company involved.
Since he adopted this tactic of rerouting and impounding ships about two years ago, Nicot has charged 22 captains with pollution, including five since the start of 2005. In the latest case on May 22, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship was spotted with an alleged 20-kilometer oil slick in its wake, ordered to call at Brest and released only after payment of a EUR400,000 bail.
Out of the 22 cases, 15 led to a sentence in first-instance court, five are pending and two have been dismissed. In March, the Brest court acquitted the Croatian captain of Panama-flagged tanker on the grounds that explanations he provided for an 11-kilometer oily sheen seen in the wake of his ship were "plausible." The captain told the court the sheen likely resulted from oil that had accumulated when he pumped in dirty water in port.
In Marseilles, the prosecutor handled 10 cases of deliberate pollution in 2004 and another 10 since the start of this year. In Le Havre, where the prosecutor oversees the French section of the English Channel, four ships have been impounded since the country has toughened pollution regulations.
Late last year, German captain Peter-Jochen Laudahn, whose ship was spotted by a French Navy helicopter in May 2003 in Nicot's jurisdiction with an alleged oily sheen in its trail, was fined EUR200,000 by an appeals court. At a hearing in December, Laudahn vehemently denied any wrongdoing, saying he didn't dump any residue and that his ship wasn't leaking any oil, even accidentally. "I didn't pollute," the 61-year-old master said.
But during the proceedings, an expert for the prosecution looked at pictures taken by the helicopter crew and contended that rainbow-colored spots in the wake of the ship were indeed oil. The appeals court doubled the EUR100,000 fine imposed by the first-instance court.
"We are victims of the militant approach of French authorities and French judges," says Bernd Laudien, a lawyer for Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH & Co., the German shipping company that operated the vessel. "This is really rough justice." The shipping company has taken the case to France's final appeals court, where a ruling isn't expected until 2006.
Captains say France's tough policy will merely prompt ships to dump waste farther offshore. "The real scoundrels dump wastes at high sea, beyond French jurisdiction and never get caught," says Jacques Loiseau, vice president of France's captain association AFCAN. "Without due justice, Nicot ruins the life of captains who often weren't aware that their own ship was the cause of a pollution." For example, Loiseau says, to avoid carrying too much bilge in their holds, large ships commonly separate oil from water and discharge the filtered water with a device called a 15-ppm (parts-per-million) separator. But the device isn't always reliable and may fail to warn the crew that a ship is causing pollution, he says.
In some cases, Loiseau says, the sheen in the wake of a ship isn't oil and instead is caused by a light breeze, melted snow or even fish slime.
But Nicot says he has little patience for such explanations. "My job is to prosecute," he says. "If a captain used a 15-ppm separator even though he knew the device wasn't working properly, I'll charge him with deliberate pollution."
By David Gauthier-Villars
13 June 2005
BREST, France (Dow Jones)--From this Atlantic port city on the western tip of France, Francois Nicot is hunting down ships dumping oil residue as they skirt around Brittany.
With new legal tools and surveillance aircraft, over the past two years the Brest district attorney and counterparts in other regions in France have charged nearly 50 captains with polluting the seas within 200 nautical miles of the country's coastline.
"We're showing them the stick," says Nicot, dubbed the French Eliot Ness by local media after the U.S. lawman who fought against Chicago mobsters in the 1920s.
But captains and shipping companies complain they're being unfairly treated, sometimes tried, convicted and penalized on evidence as flimsy as a shiny streak of water in their wakes.
French authorities moved to fight sea polluters after two oil spills tarnished France's coastline, in December 1999 and in November 2002, sparking strong resentment among the general public. While not as attention-grabbing as massive accidental spills from oil tankers, prosecutors say illegal dumping of engine residue takes a toll on French waters and beaches as some crews throw away oil waste that is supposed to be disposed of at port.
France is following the lead of the U.S., which cracked down on the industry in the late 1980s, after the Exxon Valdez gushed 37,000 metric tons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, and again in the late 1990s after cruise ships discharged toxic wastes in the Caribbean. Congress enacted the Oil Pollution Act in 1990, giving the U.S. Coast Guard more power to control shipping and increasing civil penalties for oil spills.
With Spain and Portugal, also hit hard in November 2002 when the Prestige oil tanker broke up off southern Europe's Atlantic Ocean coastline, France now is lobbying for tougher rules against polluters within the European Union.
So far, the three countries have convinced the E.U. to adopt regulations aimed at gradually banning single-hull tankers and preventing ships deemed dangerous from sailing in European waters. The E.U. also has set up the European Maritime Safety Agency, in part to ensure ships have facilities to dispose of their wastes properly at port.
In February, the European Parliament passed a draft directive that classifies deliberate pollution such as dumping oil residue as a criminal offense, which would allow offenders to be jailed. Under French law, a jail sentence of up to 10 years can be imposed on a captain only if the ship carries a French flag or the pollution occurs close to shore in territorial waters.
Greece, Malta and Cyprus - Europe's leading nations operating flagged ships - are expected to try to block the directive at a June 27 meeting of E.U. transport ministers, who must approve the bill before it goes into force.
"Shipping is an international activity and needs global, rather than regional regulations," says Ioannis Kourouniotis, head of the maritime transport department at Greece's diplomatic mission in Brussels. Greece says the proposed directive could harm its shipping industry, saying that youngsters won't take up seafaring for fear they can end up behind bars.
Prosecutors say illegal dumping is a major cause of sea pollution. The E.U. estimates that large cargo and freight ships discharge more oil every year than comes from oil tankers accidentally running aground or breaking apart, though the exact amount of oil dumped can't be quantified.
On satellite snapshots, some sections of European waters appear like polka dot shirts with hundreds of so-called "orphan" spills. Most ships run on bunker fuel - cheap, heavy fuel oil that generates waste when refined onboard. To save time and money, some ships dump bunker fuel residue or, more often, their bilge - a mix of water and oil emanating from the engine room.
French authorities have put in place one of Europe's most aggressive legal strategies. Prosecutors don't waste much time investigating how the pollution occurred or whether a captain acted on his own or carried out orders of his shipping company. An aerial picture of a spill can be enough to convict a captain of pollution, while most other European courts would require additional evidence, such as samples of the residue. A French judge can impose fines of up to EUR1 million, even if only a small amount of waste is dumped.
In 2003, France decided to enforce the tougher regulation in its so-called exclusive economic zone, which extends up to 200 nautical miles off the country's coasts rather than just within its 12-mile territorial waters. To accelerate legal proceedings, power to prosecute in the Atlantic, the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea were transferred from Paris to three regional offices in Brest, Le Havre and Marseille.
From Brest, Nicot is monitoring one of the world's busiest maritime routes, with some 200 large ships sailing to or from Northern Europe every day in an area as large as the state of Arizona. Aircraft fitted with infrared cameras now can detect oil during day-time flights and the country's customs service plans to start operating a new plane later this year that can also spot violations at night.
"We suspect that a lot of captains dump waste in the dead of night, when they know we can't see them," says Nicot.
Once a surveillance aircraft has spotted an alleged spill in the wake of a ship, he orders the vessel to stop at the nearest French port and won't release it until a hefty bail is paid, pending court proceedings.
"Our new approach is very pragmatic," Nicot says from his office overlooking the Brest port. "We hit where it hurts."
In the past, the district attorney says he often struggled to charge anyone, as ship owners hid behind a maze of holding companies. But now, faced with the mounting costs associated with an immobilized ship, owners or their insurers often wire money for the bail without delay.
"In one case, I received the payment less than 45 minutes after I had impounded the vessel," he says, declining to identify the shipping company involved.
Since he adopted this tactic of rerouting and impounding ships about two years ago, Nicot has charged 22 captains with pollution, including five since the start of 2005. In the latest case on May 22, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship was spotted with an alleged 20-kilometer oil slick in its wake, ordered to call at Brest and released only after payment of a EUR400,000 bail.
Out of the 22 cases, 15 led to a sentence in first-instance court, five are pending and two have been dismissed. In March, the Brest court acquitted the Croatian captain of Panama-flagged tanker on the grounds that explanations he provided for an 11-kilometer oily sheen seen in the wake of his ship were "plausible." The captain told the court the sheen likely resulted from oil that had accumulated when he pumped in dirty water in port.
In Marseilles, the prosecutor handled 10 cases of deliberate pollution in 2004 and another 10 since the start of this year. In Le Havre, where the prosecutor oversees the French section of the English Channel, four ships have been impounded since the country has toughened pollution regulations.
Late last year, German captain Peter-Jochen Laudahn, whose ship was spotted by a French Navy helicopter in May 2003 in Nicot's jurisdiction with an alleged oily sheen in its trail, was fined EUR200,000 by an appeals court. At a hearing in December, Laudahn vehemently denied any wrongdoing, saying he didn't dump any residue and that his ship wasn't leaking any oil, even accidentally. "I didn't pollute," the 61-year-old master said.
But during the proceedings, an expert for the prosecution looked at pictures taken by the helicopter crew and contended that rainbow-colored spots in the wake of the ship were indeed oil. The appeals court doubled the EUR100,000 fine imposed by the first-instance court.
"We are victims of the militant approach of French authorities and French judges," says Bernd Laudien, a lawyer for Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH & Co., the German shipping company that operated the vessel. "This is really rough justice." The shipping company has taken the case to France's final appeals court, where a ruling isn't expected until 2006.
Captains say France's tough policy will merely prompt ships to dump waste farther offshore. "The real scoundrels dump wastes at high sea, beyond French jurisdiction and never get caught," says Jacques Loiseau, vice president of France's captain association AFCAN. "Without due justice, Nicot ruins the life of captains who often weren't aware that their own ship was the cause of a pollution." For example, Loiseau says, to avoid carrying too much bilge in their holds, large ships commonly separate oil from water and discharge the filtered water with a device called a 15-ppm (parts-per-million) separator. But the device isn't always reliable and may fail to warn the crew that a ship is causing pollution, he says.
In some cases, Loiseau says, the sheen in the wake of a ship isn't oil and instead is caused by a light breeze, melted snow or even fish slime.
But Nicot says he has little patience for such explanations. "My job is to prosecute," he says. "If a captain used a 15-ppm separator even though he knew the device wasn't working properly, I'll charge him with deliberate pollution."