Update on the North American ECA Proposal

In IMO document MEPC 59/WP.12/Add.1 the IMO Secretariat issued the draft report of the Marine Environment Protection Committee on its 59th session, commenting also on the US-Canadian proposal for ECA designation of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

A large majority of the delegates expressed support, in principle, for the proposed ECA, since it met the requirements of appendix 3 of MARPOL Annex VI. A total of 9 points were raised for careful consideration and clarification when reviewing the proposal in detail; such as extend of proposed ECA, position of Saint-Pierre et Michelon, gain/loss between 150 and 200 nautical miles, availability of low sulfur fuel, additional cost of fuel used in the ECA, etc.

The Committee agreed to forward the United States/Canadian proposal to the Technical Group for further consideration, taking in account the above and in particular:
.1 the availability of LS fuel and its consequences; and
.2 the position of the Saint-Pierre et Michelon Archipelago as French territories in the proposed ECA.

For the full text of the IMO document, please contact me at gernot@hermont.com

USCG to hire civilian inspectors

The USCG has announced the opening of the first installment of Civilian Vacancy Announcements for five new National Centers of Expertise (NCOE), stating that each center will have four to a maximum of nine inspectors/ investigators. The center employees are resources marine inspectors or investigators fully engaged in their primary inspection/ investigation assignments, who will also train student inspectors, advise policy-makers, regulation developers or operational program managers on trends, best practices, leading indicators, problematic issues or other functional area concerns.

It seems to me that the USCG is following Transport Canada's lead, where we have seasoned seagoing persoonnel employed as "steamship inspectors". And it seems reasonable to expect that with the training provided by these "civilian experts" the level of proficiency of the USCG inspectors will be raised.