The History of STORIS -- PCB proof in the paperwork -- Part 5

This is a link to the Environmental Assessment report from December 2006 prepared as the Coast Guard was getting ready to decommission CGC STORIS and CGC ACUSHNET. The report details what the impact of decommissioning the two ships will have on the environment as well as the impact the retirements will have on the ships themselves. This report explains that STORIS was contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls. The report indicates that the ship required special handling and disposition because of the contamination. STORIS either had to be transferred to a foreign government or another federal agency unless PCB remediation took place. Keyword search “PCB” and you'll hit the relevant references.

Also, check Section 3.5.1 on the top of page 3-9 for the relevant federal laws that we believe were broken by the Coast Guard and GSA, allowing STORIS to be excessed through and sold by GSA as the ship contains undocumented and unacknowledged wiring that likely contained PCBs. There is also likely to be encapsulated paints that contain PCBs on board the ship, as well.

Appendix D is the Memorandum of Agreement created between the Alaska State Historic Preservation Office and U.S. Coast Guard through Sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. This agreement was used by GSA to abruptly end negotiations with STORIS Museum and The Last Patrol for the ship's preservation and to put the ship up for sale in June 2013.

Appendix E, created in November 2000, serves as the basis for the environmental report used to clear the ship for export. Look closely at the 39 sample locations and you will note that not one of the samples has anything to do with the electrical system of the ship and that the sample sites included many materials that were added to the ship well after the 1979 PCB ban in the United States.

This is a large document of over 7 MB in size. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and review it. http://goo.gl/kde13k