Reporting from Washington – The Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday unveiled a five-year, $475-million plan to revitalize the Great Lakes, including cleaning up polluted water and beaches, restoring wetlands and fighting invasive species such as Asian carp.

Federal and state officials call the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Action Plan “historically unprecedented” in size, funding and coordination between branches of government.

The plan calls itself light on study and heavy on action, seeking to heal the Great Lakes ecosystem from “150 years of abuse” and to ensure that “fish are safe to eat; the water is safe to drink; the beaches and waters are safe for swimming, surfing, boating and recreating; native species and habitats are protected and thriving; no community suffers disproportionately from the impacts of pollution; and the Great Lakes are a healthy place for people and wildlife to live.”

Developed by 16 federal agencies, the plan requires annual progress reports from the EPA on restoration activities and the allocation of funding, which would come from the normal congressional appropriations process.

The plan sets concrete measures for progress on several key threats to the lakes and their surrounding communities.

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We rarely reproduce press releases… but it’s Sunday and not your usual release. Seaways, the Nautical Institute’s monthly magazine, has a story this month on ideas to prevent oil discharges aboard ships. They point some fingers and expose some truths while, in some mariner’s opinions, over analyzing others. Here’s the summary;

The NI has identified a number of potential pitfalls in ensuring compliance, and these include poor equipment and maintenance, procedural problems and out dated practices, through to ill equipped port facilities.

In addition, owners need to convince those onboard that they are truly serious about tackling pollution. Companies cannot simply pay lip service to the rules, and tangible action is needed to guard against complacency, to mitigate the risks of mistakes, and to guard against errors of judgment. With the risk of enormous financial penalties and with jail time a real possibility, owners who simply relax and assume all is in order can get a real shock when things go wrong.

However, not all the problems stem from equipment or procedures, and the NI regretfully recognizes the age-old “can do” attitude of many seafarers can be damaging. In too many instances there appears the problems of falsified records, and of a continued willingness to do what is thought best by an individual, even when that flies in the face of the Safety Management System (SMS).

According to Captain Gale, “Environmental crimes are sadly tarnishing the image of shipping. It is vital to remember that responsibility always rests with the owner, and it is not simply enough to put systems onto the ship – these need to be supported and made to work, to ensure the actions of those onboard are always the right actions”.

Download the article –> Pollution Prevention; The Role Of Shipmasters

The New York Times has the story on a California petition to limit ship emissions:

The California attorney general and a coalition of environmental groups have called for federal regulation to curb heat-trapping emissions from the worldwide fleet of about 90,000 oceangoing ships, including container ships, tankers and cruise ships.

The regulations, sought in separate petitions to the Environmental Protection Agency, would apply to United States territorial waters.

Only six countries generate more emissions of greenhouse gases than the world’s oceangoing vessels, said Michael Hirshfield, a senior scientist with Oceana, an ocean-protection organization.

The group’s petition, whose participants included the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth, argues that “the sheer number of these ships, coupled with operating practices that use fuel inefficiently and poor government oversight, results in carbon dioxide emissions” equal to the emissions of 130 million to 195 million cars. Continue Reading….

Joe Angelo, the deputy managing director of Intertanko, a group representing independent tanker operators, said the best approach was “to reduce emissions worldwide — universally — not just unilateral action in the United States or the European Union.”

INTERTANKO’s solution? Here is a report from their June 2007 study on emissions:

The environmental footprint of ships, which carry 90% of world trade covering over 30,000 billion tonne-miles a year, is extremely light compared to other forms of transport. And yet despite the industry’s tonne-mile efficiency, it has been left behind by other sectors which are already regulated and compelled to use clean, environmentally friendly fuels. This means that the shipping industry has become an easy-to-pick fruit, recently targeted by politicians eager to show that they are still doing something on the environmental front.

A switch from residual fuel to marine diesel oil (MDO) means a comprehensive and practical strategy for an efficient and long-term reduction of air pollution from ships. Should one expect ships to reduce air pollution while still burning residual fuels? These fuels have a significant content of sulphur, nitrogen (that contributes to the NOx emissions and thereby ozone or a greenhouse gas), hazardous components including heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) that combine to create a cocktail of particulate emissions and generated sludge

The proposal that the shipping industry switches to distillate bunker fuel (MDO) according to a timescale that takes into account fuel availability, delivers immediate, real and global reductions in atmospheric pollution (SOx, NOx and PM). It deals with the cause of this pollution rather than the effect – i.e. rather than limiting the rulemaking development to cleaning up the pollution itself. These are among the reasons that this proposal has been gaining support from a number of IMO states – including Norway.

This seems to be in contrast with the California petition which calls for elimination of bunker fuel and a proposed reduction of vessel speed by 20%. Considering our industry lives by the motto “Time is Money” it’s not surprising that INTERTANKO is looking for alternative solutions or fighting any actions that would mandate speed reductions. I may be stating the obvious but wouldn’t speed reductions increase the demand for hulls? Wouldn’t this be in the interests of an organization of ship owners?

This debate is destined to expand in direct relation to the growth of our global warming problems. When the argument is settled, whether by the EPA or IMO, I doubt the solutions will be those suggested in the petition or by INTERTANKO but I’m hopeful the coverage will increase awareness and development of workable solutions… that is if the press can avoid misleading and counterproductive headlines like THIS.

CLICK HERE for Maritime News Discoverer stories on Vessel Emissions.

Related Links;

• The EU’s Ship Emissions Strategy
• Shipping bodies challenge EU pollution rule
• Measures for sustainable shipping (Shipping Gazette)
• A look at Modes of Transportation with regard to emissions