Places of Refuge

by Nicholas Walsh, PA

On December 29, the car carrier Gravity Highway, fresh from the yard and still on sea trials, struck the port side of the chemical tanker Maritime Maisie, disabling both ships and starting a cargo fire on the Maritime Maisie. As I write this, Maritime Maisie is adrift off South Korea, attended by a small fleet of salvage tugs. The vessel has sought a place of refuge for more than a month and seems destined to sink or be scuttled, releasing her cargo of paraxylene and crylonitrile into our ocean.

The Maritime Maisie is no isolated incident. Every year, a ship at sea catches fire or is holed and seeks refuge in vain, as port captains refuse entry to a ship they fear risks causing widespread inshore pollution. One of the more notable instances occurred during the 1982 Falklands War, when Argentinian air forces, despite ample notice of the transit and despite the ship being 500 hundred miles from the war zone, repeatedly attacked the supertanker Amerada Hess, transiting around the Horn from a Caribbean refinery to Valdez. Though the bomb damage was not initially fatal, one bomb entered a cargo hold and failed to explode. No country welcomed this pariah ship, which was under control and making way. She was scuttled in deep water off Brazil.

When safety of life is concerned, the pollution issues presented by such ships are generally put to the side. The issue arises when the crew have all been evacuated or are otherwise safe, but the ship remains in need of assistance if she is not eventually to break up and release her polluting cargo.

In 2003 the International Maritime Organization adopted Guidelines on Places of Refuge for Ships in Need of Assistance. (The IMO is a specialized agency of the United Nations with 170 member states, whose primary purpose is to develop and maintain a regulatory framework for shipping.) These guidelines ask that coastal states give “due consideration . . . to the balance between the advantage for the affected ship and the environment resulting from bringing the ship into a place of refuge and the risk to the environment resulting from that ship being near the coast.” Essentially, the Guidelines recognize that any decision to allow a damaged ship into inshore waters is likely to be on some level a political decision. The Guidelines therefore urge member governments to make careful, detailed and expert assessment of the situation, so that the matter can be approached with the benefit of a fact driven analysis of the risks and possible benefits of allowing the ship into the place of refuge. Among the possible benefits, the Guidelines note, is that a tanker breaking up a dozen miles off the coast may imperil a hundred or more miles of coastline, while if that ship is brought into port the spill may be averted entirely, or failing that, contained. The risks to the proposed place of refuge are also to be given deep consideration, especially if unique or other very high value habitats would be at risk.

The phrase “places of refuge” is chosen advisedly. While a ship may need sheltered inshore waters to effect repairs and stabilize the situation, the ship may not need a developed harbor. If a ship poses an explosion risk, no port captain would allow a ship near a population center.

The Guidelines provide a detailed framework and checklist for a port state to make these determinations – it’s a nice piece of work. Maine hosts several tanker ports, and tankers transit our offshore waters daily. Let’s hope we never have to decide between inviting a Maritime Maisie into our waters, or leaving her to die and spill her cargo at sea.

Nicholas Walsh is a Portland maritime attorney with 26 years’ experience. He may be reached at (207) 772-2191, or nwalsh@gwi.net.