EPA's proposed rulemaking

On August 28, 2009 the US EPA posted the proposed rulemaking for ECA compliant air emissions in the internal waters of the USA.

I did not read the full text of the ECA document, but had some e-mail exchanges with a US consultant.

The question I had was in regard to ECA compliance for the St. Lawrence Seaway. As everyone knows, there is no provision for innocent passage in an ECA, the ship has to comply with the ECA requirements. Which for a Canadian ship sailing from Montreal to Lake Ontario means it has to meet with the EPA imposed emission criteria. The implications are that with a rigid ECA application, Canadian ships would need to conform with US emission requirements on internal trade.

Dennis Bryant suggests that there is nothing limiting the EPA from issuing a waiver to Canadian Lakers on the ECA requirements; which would be a nice, neighborly gesture.

The wild card in all of this is the states' liberty to impose more stringent requirements for their waters, as they did in the VGP. The question I have then, could New York void the EPA's waver on ECA compliance for Canadian Lakers by insisting on ECA compliance?

MARPOL Annex I issues

Under current MARPOL regulations, older bilge filtering equipment is "grandfathered". Older ships are permitted to keep existing equipment and are able to repair same, but are required, under resolution MEPC.107(49), to fit new equipment when replacing defective/ non-repairable equipment.

Before MEPC.107(49) was adopted the United States submitted a request for phase-out of existing (older) equipment, requiring the fitting of MEPC.107(49) compliant bilge water treatment system with the next dry-docking of the vessel. This proposal was not adopted, because replacing bilge separators on something like 50,000 ships within a five year span would have been difficult.

It seems the United States keep pushing for this phase out at MEPC meetings, to date it has not been recommended for adoption.

From a practical point of view, the US proposal seems like a mute point. Technical progress and port state control take pretty well care of this matter because:

• Bilge separators (meeting resolution A.393(X) or MEPC.60(33)) can be repaired and do separate oil from water to prevent an oil sheen.
  
• Bilge Alarms A.393(X) compliant have been out of production since 1995; technology has progressed and the after sales market has disappeared, so repair of these units is virtually no longer possible.
• Similarly, the MEPC.60(33) compliant equipment faces the same road to extinction; it's just a matter of a few years before these bilge alarms are no longer repairable.
• By changing older bilge alarms to the MEPC.107(49) compliant unit, the owner (generally) requires an upgrade of the bilge separator to current generation, because the effluent quality from the old coalsecer type separator will not meet the <15>

For ship owners adhering to Green Marine, upgrading to more efficient pollution prevention equipment is one of the criterias to achieve the level of industrial leadership.

The North American ECA

I have to appologize for the speed with which I posted the July 23 blog; I didn't read the whole draft.

The Canada/ USA proposal was endorsed by the "Technical Committee" who found that

• the application met the required guidelines,
  
• the breadth of the ECA was determined through application of the criteria in Appendix II, and was not based or linked to the extent of the EEZ
• approved the proposal to designate an ECA for the coastal waters of the United States and Canada...

My view differs on 2 points. One is that the submission overstates the effort by the proponents in regard to land-based pollution. The other is that the East Coast marine emissions from ships is blown offshore rather than inshore, therefore are based on poor science.

The fact that the most vulnerable area, the Canadian Arctic (north of 60) is being excluded from the ECA suggests poor science.

The ECA will be submitted for approval at MEPC.60, in March 2010.If approved we have an ECA by 2012.

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.

2008 Annual Report Paris MOU

The (to me) surprising statistic in the 2008 annual report is the relatively high percentage (6.01% in 2008) of MARPOL Annex I deficiencies. While there is a downward trend in the deficiencies, the 6.01% suggests that oil pollution is still considered a "step child" in shipboard operations.

It is interesting to note that deficiencies in "ship's certificates" are at 6.55% and "ISM related deficiencies" are at 5.54%, since both categories are (sort of) connected with Annex I.

Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships

The recent IMO document MEPC 59/INF.28, which is dated June 22, 2009 is a report by the IMO secretariat on June 2009 sessions of the subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC that continued the intensive negotiation phase leading up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP 15) later this year, which is tasked with agreeing on a post-2012 climate regime.

One of the drafts for submission to COP 15, suggests the following alternatives for the greenhouse gas emission scenario for marine:

IMO shall be encouraged to continue without delay its activities for the development of policies and measures to reduce GHG emissions, and specifically: [To achieve, through the use of its policies and mechanisms, total GHG emmission reductions which are at least as ambitious as the total GHG emmission reductions under the convention;]

Alternative text:

Recognizing that in order to achieve a necessary two degree scenario, global greenhouse gas emissions should follow a pathway that includes a peak year no later than 2015 and results in emission reductions of 50-85% by 2050, in accordance with findings in the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC.

In the June issue of "Shipping World & Shipbuilder" M.A.N. state that the energy demand for shipping one TEU has dropped by 84% between 1960 and 2008. This reduction is a result of increased carrying capacity of ships and increases in hull form, coating and propulsion efficiencies. MAN suggests further 33% GHG reductions can be obtained by shifting from marine fuel to natural gas.

How will domestic shipowners deal with future GHG emission limits?