Posted on 10/20/2009 5:19:11 AM PDT by Willie Green
Federal efforts to clean up laker emissions are fueling a heated debate throughout the St. Lawrence Seaway.
“It’s a threat to the economics of shipping on the Great Lakes,” Adolph Ojard, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said of rules recently proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA wants to wean older lakers off their diet of inexpensive No. 6 “bunker” fuel to reduce sulfur levels 50 percent in 2012 and help prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths. The entire fleet would convert to low-sulfur marine diesel by 2015.
But lake carriers say the effort could backfire if it drives more cargo to trucks and trains, which burn more fuel and emit more pollutants per ton of cargo than ships do. And they say the transition may well shrink the fleet of freighters serving the Twin Ports and other Great Lakes communities.
“We foresee 13 steamers potentially being retired,” said Glen Nekvasil, a spokesman for the Lake Carriers Association, a trade organization that represents companies operating freighters on the Great Lakes.
That would include such iconic Duluth visitors as the Alpena and the Edward L. Ryerson, vessels that are powered by older steam engines instead of more modern diesels.
In all, 13 U.S.-flagged steamships remain in active service — 20 percent of the U.S. laker fleet — and Nekvasil said the cost of repowering these vessels could run in the neighborhood of $22 million apiece. Even if fleet operators choose to make this hefty investment, it would require ships to be taken out of service at least temporarily.
“Marine engines like these don’t come off the shelf,” Nekvasil said.
Mark Barker, president of Interlake Steamship Co., based in Richfield, Ohio, said he would have little choice but to quit operating the two remaining steamers — the Kaye E. Barker and the Herbert C. Jackson — in his eight-vessel fleet and write them off as obsolete in 2012 if the proposed rules are adopted.
ENVIRONMENTALIST ASSAILS "DIRTY FUEL"
But change is overdue, said Jennifer Nalbone, a campaign director for Great Lakes United, an environmental advocacy group.
While she described the domestic fleet of lakers as a mixed bag, Nalbone said: “Many of them have engines that are decades old and that burn dirty bunker fuel. It’s time for them to do their part.”
The United States and Canada have been working together to establish North American “emission control areas.” Newly proposed rules would regulate the type of fuel ships can use when operating within 200 nautical miles of the coastline.
The EPA projects its proposed regulations annually would eliminate 1.2 million tons of domestic nitrogen oxide emissions and would slash the quantity of particulate matter released into the atmosphere by about 143,000 tons by 2030. Regulators say that’s beneficial not only for the environment but for the welfare of humans.
The agency predicts that if its proposed new rules are adopted, by 2030 we could annually prevent 13,000 to 33,000 premature deaths associated with exposure to particulates and 220 to 980 premature deaths related to ozone.
“To the extent that shipping companies will be required to clean up the fuel they burn, I think this will be a step in the right direction,” said Mary Marrow, a staff attorney at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
She said that reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions also should help in the battle against haze that has besmirched once-pristine views of Isle Royale and the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area.
“Anything that can be done to improve the airshed is greatly needed,” Marrow said. “This requires a regional effort, because air has no boundaries.”
SHIFT AWAY FROM LAKERS?
But Ojard fears the EPA has given inadequate consideration to the possible repercussions of applying the proposed fuel rules to the Great Lakes.
The new rules would hit the Great Lakes especially hard when fully implemented, because vessels operating in the 2,342-mile St. Lawrence Seaway system will be compelled to use more expensive marine diesel instead of bunker fuels.
In contrast, ocean-going vessels calling on coastal ports will only need to switch to more costly marine diesel when within 200 miles of their destination. For most of their journey they’ll be allowed to operate on cheaper bunker fuels.
If the new rules take effect, Ojard predicts salties may think twice about entering the St. Lawrence Seaway, given the higher operating costs they will face there.
Should costs rise, domestic shippers also may shift their cargo from lakers to trains or trucks, said Dave Podratz, general manager of the Murphy Oil USA refinery in Superior. Barker considers a shift of freight from the lakes to land quite likely if the EPA rules are enacted. He said vessels now burning intermediate fuels would need to switch to distillate fuels costing at least $1 per gallon more, and carriers could not absorb this added expense without adjusting rates.
“Haulage or freight contracts can be lost to shipping and railroad competitors for just pennies a ton,” he said.
Since trains provide a less fuel-efficient means of transportation than ships, Ojard said, shifting freight to rail will dump far more greenhouse gases and pollutants into the atmosphere than lakers currently do.
“It may do more harm than good,” he said. “I think it would be detrimental to both the environment and the economy.”
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., has shared his concerns about the proposed rule changes with the EPA, said John Schadl, his communications director. Representatives of Great Lakes states met with the EPA last week, he said.
If laker rates climb, Schadl fears it could hurt demand for taconite and slow the pace of economic recovery.
“We’re finally at a point where the recession looks like it could be turning around,” he said. “We’re not going to jeopardize a recovery just because the EPA has made a rule that is ill-considered.”
...they'll "relax" the rules if you could just find a way to promote the agenda...*nudge nudge*..it won't cost you as much..*wink wink*
Really? Now there is a logical argument. A perfectly good transportation system is to be overhauled because, basically, "I say so." That is the essence of "environmentalism".
But people in the Midwest voted for economic destruction.
So let them have it.
Do they think the socialists in charge of Washington gives a damned?
The environment be darned...Having worked with bunker fueled marine boilers I think #6 diesel should be outlawed just to save the sanity of the engineer...it is one rasty bugger.
But people in the Midwest voted for economic destruction.
No they didn't.
The Republicrats never offered them economic survival as an option.
The taconite being shipped is Iron Ore.
Granted, the enviro-whacknuts have been attacking the mining/iron & steel industries for decades.
But the GOP gave up trying to defend against overregulation a long time ago, and abandoned the people in the Midwest for "globalization".
The real outrage is that EPA is putting the pinch on modern ships while letting the old coal burning SS Badger car ferry - Manitowoc WI to Ludington MI - dump all of it’s coal ash directly into the lake - many tons a week.
The ship also operates with an anything-goes Clean Air Act exemption, allowing them to shoot untreated and unscrubbed stack gas, fly ash and particulate straight up into the air.
Free ride for the dirtiest ship in the USA. Because the tech is more archaic than the rest.
“but I am a fan of cleaner lakes. “
A small consideration...it is the air around the lakes that is the focus....
For those interested in yesterdays related discussion:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2365682/posts
Do they think the socialists in charge of Washington gives a damned?
The GOP doesn't give a damn either.
You can see their agenda by their words.
Ecotheists follow only one “Religion” ....
No willie, the Unions and the big cities politics killed the midwest a longtime ago. The big three auto companies are dead because of unions and regulations. Your a troll anyway.
“I’m no fan of the EPA, but I am a fan of cleaner lakes.”
Are you aware that “cleaner” was the reason that Ohio no longer has the major steel industry it once did?
Remember the commie/enviro whine when the Cayuga River “caught fire”? Well, not long ago, those same commie/enviro nut cases proudly proclaimed that there was a bass fishery in that river.
How precious! America lost its steel industry and gets a chance to sell a few bass boats to ‘bassholes”, to sell a few cans of worms???
Think the profits from worms and a handful of boats will pay enough in tax money for game wardens, “fishery biologists”, and other government trough feeders like EPA’s staff of commies devoted to destruction of America.
Wake up! Forget smelling the roses - read the bottom line!
ENvironmentalism was designed by commies to destroy AMerica’s economy so communism could be installed here.
How can I say this? Easy - I was once on the Sierra Club’s Florida Executive Committee, A.K.A FLEXCOM. That makes me a real, live, walking, talking ex-FLEXCOMMIE.
They ARE commies.
Been there. Listened to them. Walked away from them.
25 or 26 US and Canadian steamers would be made obsolete.
Your a troll anyway.And you're an illiterate, public school dummy.
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