SUBIC BAY FREEPORT\u2014A United States Navy vessel, which has been at the center of a waste dumping issue in Philippine waters, has no waste treatment facility, contradicting claims by a contractor that what it receives from the vessel are pretreated wastes, the ship captain said on Friday.
\nCapt. Glenn Pendrick, commanding officer of the submarine tender USS Emory Land, told Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chair Roberto Garcia that the ship \u201chas no waste treatment facility [which is why] we hire third party contractors.\u201d
\nIn earlier media interviews and press statements, retired Vice Admiral Mateo Mayuga, president of the Glenn Defense Marine Asia Philippines Inc., claimed that wastes from US vessels collected by his firm were pretreated.
\n\u201cDomestic waste in US Navy ships is pretreated, in accordance to their standard procedure,\u201d Mayuga said in a statement this week.
\nGlenn Defense\u2019s defense
\nThe SBMA has been investigating Glenn Defense for supposedly dumping untreated wastes in Subic Bay. The company, however, disputed the allegation against it, saying Glenn Defense was following international and local laws on waste dumping and that wastes collected from US Navy ships were dumped outside Philippine waters.
\nResults of the test conducted by the Subic Water and Sewerage Co. on samples of effluents taken last month from MT Glenn Guardian, a vessel of Glenn Defense, showed these to have exceeded Philippine standards for dumping. The wastes were taken from USS Emory Land.
\nSubic Water officials said while they could not say whether the waste water sample was toxic or not, if not fit for release in the environment, \u201cas the organic content was beyond the permissible limits.\u201d
\nPendrick, who received Bello as a guest in his ship along withSBMA representatives and reporters, said he was aware of the allegations against Glenn Defense. \u201cThe US Navy is already investigating this,\u201d he said.
\n\u201c[The US Navy is] committed to being good stewards of the environment\u2026 which is why when we hire third party contractors, it\u2019s in the contract that they follow all international and local laws,\u201d he said. Pendrick said his ship generates and disposes of gray water, oily waste and sewage.
\nWhen asked by Bello, Pendrick said the USS Emory Land, being a submarine tender, also \u201chas the ability to extract nuclear waste\u201d from nuclear submarines. He said, however, that this was not typical and the nuclear waste is usually dumped in designated areas in the US territory.
\nBello later told reporters that the audience with Kendrick has raised various concerns.
\n\u201cForemost is the admission that the Emory Land has the capacity to extract nuclear waste,\u201d he said. Bello said the national government has to step in and conduct an investigation of the incident.
\nThe lawyers of Glenn Defense initially invoked the Visiting Forces Agreement when the SBMA asked it to answer its \u201cshow-cause\u201d letter on the waste dumping in Philippine waters. Glenn Defense, however, backtracked and said it was not covered by the VFA.
\nAquino\u2019s silence
\nBello said President Aquino has to respond to this issue. \u201cThey can no longer keep quiet. They should have done something when the incident first came out, instead of letting the SBMA conduct the investigation on its own,\u201d he said. Earlier, the SBMA said results of its initial investigation showed that there was no evidence that any toxic waste, such as nuclear, chemical or hazardous waste, had been discharged in Subic Bay.
\n\u201cNeither is there evidence that oily wastes or sewage wastes have been dumped in our waters,\u201d an SBMA statement said on Monday.
\nBut Bello said investigation into the issue is not over yet. <\/p>\n