Duluth News Tribune: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/114525/
Conflicting ballast rules confuse Great Lakes shipping agents
While Minnesota and Wisconsin share the waters of Lake Superior, their plans to thwart invasive species are very different. Shipping agents are expression frustration as the new season approaches.
By: John Myers, Duluth News Tribune
The first ships of the season will head to the Twin Ports after the St. Lawrence Seaway system opens March 25 — but it’s not clear if all of them will be ready to comply with new environmental regulations.
Last September, Minnesota took the lead among states in enacting ballast water regulations for ships on the Great Lakes. Wisconsin followed last month with rules of its own.
While the two states share the waters of Lake Superior, their plans to thwart invasive species are very different.
“All of our [saltwater ship owners] are wondering what the hell is going on. They think the states around the Great Lakes have lost their minds,’’ said Chuck Hilleren, president of Guthrie Hubner shipping agents in Duluth.
“It’s just insanity to have all these different rules for Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan and New York… and it couldn’t have come at a worse time with the economy.”
Others agreed.
“Confusion is an understatement. It’s a mess,” said Glen Nekvasil, a vice president of the Lakes Carriers Association, which represents all U.S.-owned ships on the Great Lakes.
He went on to lambast government policies that regulate lake vessels the same as salt water ships.
“Our boats don’t leave the Great Lakes. We have never introduced a single invasive species to the lakes,” he said.
Including Lakers
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency officials dispute that, saying ballast from lakers is a likely cause for the migration of foreign species from the eastern Great Lakes to Lake Superior. The Twin Ports’ harbor receives nearly as much ballast discharge as all other Great Lakes ports combined — 5.8 billion gallons in 2007 alone, according to federal records. Of that discharge, about 95 percent is from lakers, said John Thomas, pollution control specialist for the PCA in Duluth.
“If we only regulated saltwater ships, we would be regulating only a tiny fraction of the ballast that’s coming in,” Thomas said.
Minnesota’s law already requires ships to have permits to enter state waters. So far, about 127 ships have applied for permits and 93 have been granted, most of them Great Lakes freighters.
Those that have yet to apply, said Thomas, are mostly foreign-owned salties that visit only occasionally. Thomas said he’s working through shipping agents and others to get the word out and get permits in hand to avoid confrontations when ships arrive.
“We don’t want to surprise anyone,” he said.
Minnesota’s new ballast regulations essentially are based on standards being adopted by the International Maritime Organization — rules backed by shipping interests and viewed as realistic and achievable.
Nekvasil said he expects all lakers to comply with Minnesota’s regulations — at least this year.
“The problem comes in 2016 when we’re supposed to install technology that doesn’t even exist yet,” he said. “We still believe Minnesota’s regulation, as it stands now, will shut down shipping on the Great Lakes in 2016.”
Wisconsin’s plan, however, has much stricter standards, though it covers far fewer ships; Great Lakes freighters, the vast majority of lakes traffic, aren’t included yet.
The Wisconsin regulations are similar to California’s, which are the toughest in the nation and 1,000 times more restrictive on the amount of living organisms allowed after ballast tanks are treated.
EPA about-face?
Complicating matters are Michigan and New York, which have regulations different than those of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The differing state rules probably will mean continued confusion for ship owners unless Congress or the federal Environmental Protection Agency step in with uniform federal standards.
That may be happening. In a groundbreaking comment, newly appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson late last month said the agency may review its regulations to require ships to treat ballast water. It’s a reversal of Bush administration policies unveiled only last year that required ships merely try to avoid moving foreign species.
Congressional action is stalled with a House bill would have the Coast Guard run ballast treatment programs while a Senate plan where Democrats want the EPA and the federal Clean Water Act to be the regulatory authority for ballast.
---
Distributed without profit to ESA Great Lakes District members who have expressed an interest in receiving aquatic invasive species information for research and educational purposes.
|
