In January 2020, the Suquamish Tribe, Washington Environmental Council, and Puget Soundkeeper reached a settlement agreement with the US Navy to clean up and prevent toxic waste from illegal ship scrapping activities, in a lawsuit filed in 2017. The Navy violated the Clean Water Act by discharging contaminated hull waste from the ex-Independence into Sinclair Inlet without a Clean Water Act permit.
Read the full story below, written by Washington Conservation Action’s Puget Sound Senior Campaign Manager Rein Attemann.
Photo: Suquamish canoes travel the waters of Puget Sound during the 2019 annual Canoe Journey. Photo courtesy of the Suquamish Tribe.
In January 2020, the Suquamish Tribe, Washington Environmental Council, and Puget Soundkeeper reached a settlement agreement with the US Navy to clean up and prevent toxic waste from illegal ship scrapping activities, in a lawsuit filed in 2017. The Navy violated the Clean Water Act by discharging contaminated hull waste from the ex-Independence into Sinclair Inlet without a Clean Water Act permit. The Navy scraped about 73 dump truck loads of materials from the hull of the Ex-Independence, a decommissioned aircraft carrier coated in toxic anti-fouling paint. While the Navy claimed they would be “gently brushing” the hull to remove materials before towing the ship to be broken up in Texas, we realized that barnacles and other hard materials encrusting the ship would need much more abrasive techniques, which would discharge toxic hull paint into the waters of Sinclair Inlet, part of Puget Sound.
The Navy proceeded with this action even after the Suquamish Tribe identified water quality concerns that would impact fish and other aquatic life, and even after newspaper articles that brought the Navy’s actions to light. Unfortunately, the only remedy was legal action, as we learned that the Navy intended to continue these types of actions on multiple decommissioned ships for years to come, which would have released even more toxics into Puget Sound. For context, the waters and sediments of Sinclair Inlet have the highest levels of copper, a common component of anti-fouling paints, in all of Puget Sound.
In the settlement agreement, the Suquamish Tribe, WEC, and Puget Soundkeeper prevented untold future contamination through a 10-year moratorium and compelled the Navy to clean up its own mess. Boaters in the region know that cleaning hulls must be done in drydock conditions and that toxic boat paint needs to be disposed of properly to prevent contamination of nearby lands and waters, plus the wildlife and people that rely on clean water.