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France: asbestos on ship negligible

Vaiju Naravane

Technopure alleges 500 tonnes of material on board

Paris: In a sudden change of tack, French authorities have begun taking recourse to an entirely new method of calculating the amount of asbestos on board the Clemenceau, the French decommissioned aircraft carrier, which is currently en route to India for dismantling.

"The total tonnage of the ship is 26,000 tonnes. The amount of asbestos on board, 45 tonnes is therefore negligible, representing only 0.02 per cent," Jean-Francois Bureau, the spokesman of the French Defence Ministry told The Hindu in a telephonic interview. This is at variance with the method used so far, in which no co-relation was established between the amount of asbestos and the total tonnage of the ship. This new method of calculation appears to be aimed at getting around the question of the real quantities of asbestos involved.

French authorities had promised to remove at least 90 per cent or 198 tonnes of its own initial estimate of 220 tonnes of asbestos on the Clemenceau. That left 22 tonnes which could not be removed without damaging the structure of the ship. Since then there have been conflicting claims and counter claims, with the French authorities scaling down their initial estimates to 160 tonnes, of which they now claim to have removed 115.

The French Government has, however, welcomed the chance to put forward its case before the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Waste Management regarding the exact amount of asbestos on board the ship.

India's stance

Last Friday, the Committee ruled that the ship's transfer to India constituted a violation of the Basel Convention since it contained significant amounts of asbestos. Nevertheless, the Committee has given itself 15 days to hear the case of the French Government and its partner SDIC which has acquired the ship for its eventual sale to Indian ship-breaking yards in Gujarat.

On Friday, the SCMC heard the testimony of engineers from Technopure, the company that carried out the first stage of asbestos removal. They alleged that contrary to the declarations of the French Government, the amount of the deadly substance on board may be over 500 tonnes.

Dismissing as "sheer fantasy" the allegations made by the Technopure engineers, Mr Bureau said, "We have said so before and I repeat it here, there is no more than 45 tonnes of asbestos on board. The estimates of there being between 500 and 1,000 tonnes are a gross exaggeration."

French courts have ruled that the Clemenceau, being a warship, is not subject to the rules and regulations of the 1989 Basel Convention that prohibits the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste. India, however, is not obliged to accept the French interpretation of the treaty, as indicated by G. Thyagarajan, Chairman of the SCMC on Hazardous Waste Management.

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