A TICKING TIME BOMB

ON THE rotting deck of the Albert J Myer, men in gloves and hard hats are struggling to level the 4,000-ton mothballed Navy ship, which is listing badly to its port side.

Three decks below, workers are crawling in the dark, connecting hoses to get rid of oily bilge water.

The Albert J Myer is slowly being righted. But not to fight another day. All the effort and expense is to keep the 57-year-old ship - and the more than 136,000 gallons of oil sloshing around inside - floating and upright in its watery purgatory.

The ship is just one of 71 decommissioned cargo and military support vessels in the Government's 'Ghost Fleet', aging rust buckets, all docked together in the middle of the James River.

Lynn Ridley, of the James River Association, said: "They're a ticking time bomb."

A large spill could pollute the James River within 48 hours, including military installations and a nearby nuclear power plant.

A report by the US Department of Transportation's inspector general said: "Some have deteriorated to a point where a hammer can penetrate their hulls."

In the past three years, there have been nine oil spills, including one that released 1,000 gallons of oil.

Just keeping the fleet afloat and upright requires 75 workers and more than $2 million a year.

The decommissioned ships used to be sold overseas for scrap at a small profit to the US Government. But that process was stopped in 1994 over concern about environmental and working conditions in the ship-breaking yards of India and Bangladesh.

As a result, surplus ships have accumulated on the James River with the number of mothballed hulks doubling in the past five years.

At the moment, the Albert J Myer and the rest of the Ghost Fleet still lie at anchor, the floating dead.

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