THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010524
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The Navy has sent a 32-member crew to the beaches at Cape Lookout on North Carolina's Outer Banks to clean up trash that washed ashore from three Norfolk-based ships.
None of the refuse contains toxins or medical debris. The trash was discovered Tuesday along an 8-mile stretch of uninhabited beach northeast of Morehead City.
Rangers at the Cape Lookout National Seashore had picked up about 10 bags of trash when they called the Navy on Tuesday to report the incident.
Navy officials in Norfolk acknowledged Wednesday that the trash apparently came from the amphibious ships Inchon, Trenton and Gunston Hall.
The people selected to clean up the debris are from the assault ship Inchon, which returned to Norfolk two weeks ago after nearly two months of duty off Haiti. Twelve days before the start of the Haitian mission, the Inchon returned from a six-month overseas deployment.
The cleanup crew was to have arrived at Cape Lookout Wednesday evening by bus. The crew members are to be joined later today by a landing craft from Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
The Navy's policy prohibits dumping of any plastics at sea, unless retention aboard presents a health risk to the crew. Food waste and certain other debris can be dumped at sea, if the ship is more than 3 miles from shore.
The ships last were near the area on Aug. 16, when the Inchon and Trenton returned from Haiti. Before that, they traveled through the area July 7 when they left for the Caribbean, and on June 23 when they returned from the Mediterranean, the Navy said.
The Gunston Hall sailed near the area on Aug. 10 and 18.
An investigation is being led by Capt. Thomas D. Barns, former commanding officer of the assault ship Guam. He is assigned to Amphibious Squadron 2 while awaiting command of a West Coast ship.
A recent preliminary study from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the Navy is behind in meeting terms of an international maritime pollution treaty that was signed 20 years ago. The service spent $26 million between 1979 and 1993 on garbage-processing research, but about half went to projects later killed or altered, the study said.
The study detailed the Navy's attempts over 14 years to develop an environmentally friendly garbage disposal system for ships. A final GAO report is due in October.
KEYWORDS: HAZARDOUS WASTE by CNB