ALANG, India — For the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez, even sailing quietly into the sunset is proving difficult.

Now called the Oriental Nicety, it’s floating off India in a kind of high-seas limbo as a court decides whether the vessel that dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s unspoiled Prince William Sound in 1989 can be hacked apart in this forlorn graveyard for once-mighty ships.

Local environmentalists have petitioned the High Court in the western state of Gujarat to block its entry pending an onboard inspection for toxic chemicals, including mercury, arsenic and asbestos.

Environmentalists acknowledge it’s probably no more toxic than so many other ships recycled at Alang, a city whose coastline was once edged with forest and is now lined with about 175 ramshackle yards pulling vessels apart. But they say the standoff focuses attention on India’s lax environmental, labor and safety standards governing the billion-dollar ship-breaking industry.

“The ex-Exxon Valdez is a test case for the robustness of India’s regulatory framework,” activist Gopal Krishna of ToxicsWatch Alliance wrote in a court filing.

In an industry that benefits from cheap labor, “they want to drop the problem on the poor people of India,” said Jim Puckett, Seattle-based head of the Basel Action Network activist group.

The Oriental Nicety’s most recent owner, Alang-based scrap company Priya Blue, says it is confident of a favorable ruling soon on the ship’s fate. If not, or if the legal limbo drags on too long, it may divert the ship to Bangladesh or Pakistan.

“We are 110 percent sure the ship is safe,” said Sanjay Mehta, a partner at Priya Blue. “The spill happened a long time back. It’s not hazardous.”