Big government - Big mess
It is a wonder how stuff like this gets started, and how much time and money is spent to fix it. We asked Ashley Reed, who is the BoatU.S. Program Coordinator for Government Affairs, to provide the following update on this situation:
Your Help is Needed!For 34 years the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has exempted discharges from recreational boats from the Clean Water Act permit system. A recent court ruling cancelled this permit exemption. EPA is required by the court decision to develop and implement by September 30, 2008 a national permit system for ALL vessels in the United States for a variety of normal operational discharges like grey water, engine cooling water and deck runoff. BoatU.S. along with other industry groups has been working behind the scenes to come up with a legislative fix for this huge problem.
If nothing is done to solve this issue, you will have to pay for a permit for each boat that you operate including your dinghy, Laser, or motorboat in each state! It is important to note that there are already federal laws restricting the overboard discharge of oil, fuel, garbage and sewage. The proposed legislation will not alter any of these existing environmental restrictions.
In the U.S. House of Representatives Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) and Congresswoman Candice Miller (R-MI) have introduced H.R. 2550, which would exclude recreational boats from this permitting process. In the U.S. Senate Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) has introduced companion legislation S. 2067. They are currently 55 House co-sponsors and 11 Senate co-sponsors.
Currently each of the bills are stuck in committee, and we need the bills to come forward for a vote! Please contact both your 3 members of Congress (1 House & 2 Senators) and ask them to consider co-sponsoring H.R. 2550/S. 2067, or voting for the legislation when it comes before the full body.
If you would like more information on this legislation including: a copy of the bill language, sample letters to send to your members of Congress and background information please visit www.boatus.com/gov/fed_alert.asp or www.boatblue.org for a direct link to your members of Congress.
posted by Blogger @ 9:53 AM
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6 Comments:
Does this mean I can't pee off my Laser any more?
Just a Modest Draft Proposal
This proposal focuses on pollution issues related to vessels, not those related to upland watersheds or urban concentrations of people. Such issues are best left to the experts on those upland and urban topics. Meanwhile, the informed reader will recognize that boaters and vessels are potentially enormous pollution contributors, because our planet is covered mostly with water, not land.
Therefore, to do justice to this sort of pollution control legislation, boaters should be required to purchase a different exemption stamp for each and every type of possible discharge. For example, for each:
1) species of bird whose waste might drop onto a boat, to then become either willfully discharged by owners or their agents into the waterways, as by boatwashing [NOTE: check with Justice on legal permissibility of such]; or unwittingly discharged thence by that force of nature called rain, one each: avian species fecal exemption stamp.
2) measured unit (or a time period-limited discharge license?) of dust or other particulate matter, as for example, sooty jet exhaust; one each: particulate class exemption stamp. [may want to disallow any and all hydrocarbon discharges regardless of provenance?]
3) man-overboard (temporary class); one MOB temporary exemption stamp, denominated for the number of crew onboard the vessel who could possibly fall overboard, to prevent unwillful crew entry of the waterways from being regarded as an illegal discharge; all crew must be immediately recovered therefrom, and no, they are not permitted to pee in the water.
4) man-overboard (permanent class); one MOB permanent exemption stamp; must be requested after the unrecovered loss of a crew from a vessel at sea, issued at no charge, but report must be completed in octuplicate, because that sounds marine-related, like the word octopus.
5) willful change of temperature of waters under jurisdiction, as by cooling machinery burning hydrocarbons, one each: cooling water exemption stamp, to be quarterly validated upon receipt of independent lab test results showing that no hydrocarbon emissions are present in said cooling water.
etc.
Recreational boats should be exempt. I can see where they would want to regulate run-off from the deck of a freighter, but a family boat, whats the discharge if it's not sewer, oil or gasoline?
A permtit to wash bird terd, Jet exhaust etc off a boat? Seems a private baot could be viewed as a help in the sense that said bird terd or jet exhaust is caught by the boat, terd dries and decomposes on the boat then is later washed off (less pollution in the water) Some dust/Jet exhaust is swept up/vaccumed by owners etc. Wouldn't the terd and Jet exhaust fall directly into the water if the pleasure boat weren't floating there in the first place? Someone has way too much time on their hands to think this stuff up.
C'mon around any major recreational port or inland waterway and check out the blue haze of smog and crapola in the water when the season's in session.
"Recreational boaters" make up, by far, the greatest percentage of day-to-day polluters in most waterways.
If we all drove electric boats or sailed without engines and never flushed the head, then there'd be a point to an exemption. But we don't. We drive big uglies that spew diesel, drip crap, and belch blue smoke.
Regulations like this are like paying for a fishing license or taxes on cigarettes and booze.
Gotta disagree with the last post. The vast majority of water pollutants come from upland sources, litter on roads, constructions sites. It all flows downhill and ends up in the water. The permit system that the courts are making EPA apply to boaters was designed for industrial discharges. It is not cost effective to regulate millions of boats the same way. And will this permit imporve water quality? No! It will just allow you to keep boating the way you have in the past. Huge cost...no environmental benefit!
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