An island company has reported that Mothballed U. S. Navy ships polluting a Northern California bay could be towed to a South Pacific island and scrapped there.

The Contra Costa Times reported on Wednesday that a salvage company in the Northern Mariana Islands announced plans to bid on disposal contracts and tow the aged vessels, mothballed in Suisun Bay, to the islands' biggest city Saipan for scrapping.

The newspaper further reported that Worldwide Salvage Saipan says, since the tiny 14-island group east of the Philippines is a U. S. commonwealth, taking the ships there wouldn't violate federal law restricting the disposal of U. S. ships to domestic scrapping yards.

The Times also said that ships from Suisun Bay have been dismantled at yards in Brownsville, Texas, for many years.

Environmentalists have shown concerns about the plan.

Colby Self of the BASEL Action Network, a non-profit group that monitors global trade, said, some of the older Suisun ships "are in horrible condition." He further said that towing the ships 4,000 nautical miles across the open Pacific makes "the likelihood of sinking a definite possibility."