| The rough draft of my comments in next month's issue of the magazine
follows. Fair warning to anyone considering wading in, it makes a long post so
if yo don't have a couple of minutes you might want to skip it.... Don't Pump the Baby Out with the Bilge Water Maybe we should send up a collective flare and hope that somebody will
notice. Once again it appears that well-intentioned Great and Powerful
Wizards (please pay no mind to that man behind the curtain) have
entirely overlooked the interests of pleasure boaters while seeking to
protect the environment. A recent court decision in a lawsuit filed against the US
Environmental Protection Agency by a Portland, Oregon group known as
the Northwest Environmental Advocates could potentially require all
pleasure boaters to purchase "discharge permits" from state
governments. The newly regulated discharges in question have nothing
to do with untreated human waste, engine oil, trash and garbage, or
other nasty stuff that any responsible boater will voluntarily contain
and dispose of appropriately ashore. Anything passing from a boat
into the surrounding waters will be considered a discharge. Want to wash your boat? You will need a permit for the wash and rinse
water to "discharge" through your scuppers and into the sound. Too much water in the bilge? Too bad. You may not be able to switch on
that bilge pump without a state permit. So fed up that you're ready to start your engine and motor off to some
country with more reasonable regulations? Not so fast, that cooling
water cycling through the raw water side of your system becomes a
"discharge". (We won't even be allowed to escape without a permit!) Despite the draconian potential effects of the legal ruling, there
wasn't actually a conspiracy against pleasure boaters. The Northwest
Environmental Advocates sued to address a worthy issue: the discharge
of ballast water from foreign vessels in US ports.
Ships entering American waters from overseas ports often travel with
enormous amounts of water in the bilge to serve as ballast.
Unfortunately, when a ship takes on ballast water huge numbers of
marine plants and animals are scooped up in the process and will be
released whenever and wherever the vessel pumps its bilges. Most of
the foreign organisms die in the new environment, but certain species
discover that they have been introduced to an area where they have no
natural predators. With natural balance disrupted, many of these immigrant life forms
(such as the zebra mussel) tend to compete too efficiently for food
and habitat and can ultimately eliminate native species that have long
served as integral links in important eco-system relationships. A new
species supplanting a native species may no longer be considered
edible by predators higher on the food chain. Organisms at the top of
the food chain (such as humans), have a vested interest in sustaining
a healthy eco-system with co-dependent plants and animals that thrive
in the local environment. The Northwest Environmental Advocates demanded that states issue
permits to any vessel planning to discharge into waters of the state.
Presumably, the states aren't going to issue permits to all applicants
without some level of prior inspection, and perhaps even requiring
that a state inspector be on hand when the material in question is
being discharged. When the court ruled in favor of the Northwest
Environmental Advocates, it omitted any specification that the ruling
applied only to commercial shipping. Similar previous regulations have
always specifically exempted recreational boaters, but no such
exemption is included in the regulations mandated by the court
decision. The court specifically ordered the EPA to rescind its previous
exemption from permit and regulation those discharges "incidental to
the normal operation of a vessel". States typically lack the will, and most certainly lack the manpower,
to enforce a regulation that would require pleasure boaters to apply
for permits prior to starting an engine, pumping a bilge, taking a
shower, or washing the highway and industrial soot from the house and
decks. Washington State alone would need thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of inspectors and permit processors to monitor every single
discharge of any material from all vessels of any description. The law
would be routinely ignored, but perhaps not entirely. The potential risk is that some zealous environmental extremist could
seize upon the court's oversight. In the ultimate fantasies of some
fanatics, the waters of the Pacific NW would be unsullied by any human
activity afloat. Leaping salmon, cavorting porpoises, and spouting
whales wouldn't be obliged to dodge around any boats or ships, (with a
possible exception for limited numbers of extensively regulated and
duly licensed kayaks, of course). It would never rain, the sun would
never set, beribboned unicorns and Technicolor rainbows would be seen
everywhere, and the gentle breezes would always be warm. With a
glaring defect in the newly refined law, the opportunity remains for
such an extremist to seek a court injunction or other legal avenue to
disrupt pleasure boating. Most boaters make conscientious environmental choices. The few that
persist in dumping holding tanks in inland waters or pumping the bilge
after an oil change "accident", deserve to be ostracized by the
responsible majority. Our recreational enjoyment depends upon
maintaining acceptably clean waterways and a healthy fishery.
Environmental activists on the radical fringes of that movement would
do well to recognize that the average pleasure boater isn't a serious
threat to the eco-system. We can indeed send up a flare by contacting our congressional
representatives and urging them to exempt pleasure vessels from the
court ruling mandating that all vessels apply for discharge permits.
Let's not pump the baby out with the bilge water. |
