the toxic truth - Greenpeace

114 Amnesty internAtionAl And greenpeAce netherlAnds
Chapter 9
Firstly, this did not apply to the waste that
had already been discharged to the APS
barge. Regardless of whether it had been
“accepted” by APS, the discharged portion
of the waste should have remained in
Amsterdam in accordance with the terms of
the Environmental Management Act and the
European Waste Shipment Regulation.
Secondly, the EU Directive on Port Reception
Facilities specifically makes keeping shipgenerated
waste on board contingent on “the
port of delivery”. The port of delivery was not
known to the Dutch. While the next port of call
was Paldiski in Estonia, it is clear from the
communications at the time that the Probo
Koala did not intend to offload the waste
there. In seeking to reload the waste, Falcon
Navigation had emailed the Dutch port agent,
BMA: “Washings are to be kept on board
and shall be disposed of at next convenient
opportunity.” 518 This information was then
made available to the authorities. 519
A subsequent article of the EU Directive is
pertinent to the events in Amsterdam. It
reads: “If there are good reasons to believe
that adequate facilities are not available at
the intended port of delivery, or if this port is
unknown, and that there is therefore a risk
that the waste will be discharged at sea,
the Member State shall take all necessary
measures to prevent marine pollution, if
necessary by requiring the ship to deliver its
waste before departure from the port.” 520
(emphasis added)
In this case the intended port of delivery was
unknown, and the Netherlands did foresee “a
risk that the waste will be discharged at sea”,
but did not “take all necessary measures
to prevent marine pollution, if necessary by
requiring the ship to deliver its waste before
departure from the port.”
Additionally, the notification made by Captain
Chertov and sent by BMA to the Amsterdam
port authorities stated that the waste
included “Cargo Residue” as well as oily tank
washings. 521 Article 10 of the EU Directive
states that cargo residues should be delivered
to a port reception facility in accordance with
the provisions of the MARPOL Convention. 522
There are no exceptions to this Article.
Given that the EU Directive requires mandatory
disposal of some types of material, the
question should have been raised: was this
such material? Given the anomalies noted
already (the smell, APS’s inability to process
the waste), along with the lack of a named port
of delivery, there should have been further
investigation and consideration of mandatory
discharge of the waste. However, these were
not done.
The EU Directive on Port Reception Facilities
requires EU states to ensure that there is an
effective process for inspection of ships. 526
This responsibility rests with Port State
Control, which in the Netherlands is a nationallevel
authority within the Ministry of Transport,
Public Works and Water Management. The
Directive accepts that it is not practicable for
every ship to be inspected, but states:
“ in selecting ships for inspection, Member
States shall pay particular attention to:
- ships which have not complied with the
notification requirements in Article 6;
- ships for which the examination of the
information provided by the master in
accordance with Article 6 has revealed other
grounds to believe that the ship does not comply
524
with this Directive… ”
Article 6 states that a ship’s captain bound
for a port located in the Community (such
as Amsterdam) should complete “truly and
accurately” the official form in Annex II. 525
The Dutch had reason to suspect that the
information provided by the Probo Koala’s
captain was not accurate, because of
the smell and the fact that, on 3 July, the
preliminary results of the sample taken by
APS showed that the waste had a COD of