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Something we should keep an eye on. This could
affect us.
The latest from the federal court case
against the EPA to regulate ballast water…Duluth News Tribune: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=39263§ion=News
New fees for recreation
boats? How would he feel about forking over more money for a federal
environmental permit, maybe $1,500 a year by one estimate? “Oh, you’re kidding? That is insane,” Cline
said. Owners of the country’s 18 million recreation boats might
agree. A ruling in a federal lawsuit being heard in “There’s a lot of little boats out there,” said
Bryan Dove, “They don’t have that kind of cash. This is just
another financial burden on the boater,” Dove said. Several environmental groups in The invasive species hitchhike in the 21 billion gallons of
shipballast taken in at distant ports and dumped annually around Ballast is water taken on by cargo ships after they unload to
balance the vessel for the journey home. A judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
California in September ordered the EPA to create a permit process by September
2008 for vessels that dispense effluent. The federal agency and the shipping industry tried to confine the
permit process to ocean vessels that take on ballast. The court instead issued a sweeping order that extended to any
vessel that discharges any fluid, including the typical 15-foot boat purchased
for nothing more than puttering down the Delta on weekends, said Duncan
Neasham, a spokesman for the National Marine Manufacturers Association in “Effluent is anything that comes off a boat,” he said.
“If you spill a Coke or wash your boat down, or carry a bottle of water
on your kayak, you might be included.” Permits could be as much as $1,500, he said. The boat-industry association, which supports controlling ballast
on cargo ships, filed papers last month in federal court voicing its concerns. The industry is hoping that Congress will pass a law before the
deadline that would largely exempt recreational boaters, Neasham said. Environmental groups, including the San Francisco-based Baykeeper,
argue in court documents that 10,000 marine species trek the globe via ballast,
causing annual economic losses as high as $137 billion, double the yearly
damage by natural disasters in the Without natural predators, uninvited species proliferate in their
new homes, causing ecological imbalance and destruction, environmentalists have
said. The zebra mussels, Caspian Sea natives, have spread throughout the
The mussels, no larger than a fingernail, clog water pipes in
power plants and compete with native species for nutrients. Recreational boating generates only a small source of pollutants,
said Margaret Podlich, vice president of government affairs for the Boat Owners
Association of the Congress has never been moved to create a law that specifically
targets domestic-traveling recreational vessels, meaning it should support one
that excludes them, Podlich said. The initiator of the lawsuit, Northwest Environmental Advocates,
believes that the thrust of the regulations will focus on oceangoing vessels,
the crux of the problem, said Nina Bell, executive director of the
Portland-based group. “We’re concerned, too,” she said of the domestic
boating industry’s concerns. --- |