A treaty between the U.S. and Canada requires certain ships to burn low-sulfur diesel fuel in a North American Emissions Control Area in Alaska beginning August 1 (goo.gl/ZH2Eo). The rule would eventually require cruise and shipping companies to use fuel with sulfur levels at 1,000 parts per million.
John Binkley president of the Alaska Cruise Association has said the cruise industry typically uses emissions controls and fuel with less sulfur than that which is currently required. A change to the new fuel, however, could cost the cruise industry millions of dollars per ship, Binkley said.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard are in charge of enforcement. The agency said it is flexible with those affected by the rule in meeting the ECA, according to the EPA in an email interview.
The rule will result in “slashing harmful particulate pollution that causes heart and asthma attacks in communities near ports and hundreds of miles inland," according to the EPA’s response.
Emissions from large marine diesel engines affect populations near ports and hundreds of miles inland, the EPA said. Fine particles, which can cause of asthma and heart attack, and smog-causing nitrogen oxide are two pollutants the EPA expects will increase over time if Control Areas are not enforced.
President George W. Bush signed the Maritime Pollution Protection Act of 2008 in July of that year. This cleared the way for ratification of the MARPOL Annex VI Treaty – the treaty that allows for Emissions Control Areas.
The EPA announced in March of 2009 its proposal to enforce a 230-mile emission control area along U.S. and Canada coastlines. The Agency submitted its proposal to the United Nations International Maritime Organization for approval. The EPA later introduced domestic rules as part of the Clean Air Act to mirror the international treaty rules governing emissions control areas. The International Maritime Organization approved the U.S./Canada ECA in March of 2010. It is scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1.
“At that time, the maximum sulfur content of fuel oil used by ships in the ECA will be limited to 10,000 ppm,” according to the EPA’s email. By 2015 this number drops to 1,000 ppm. Requirements for ships to use advanced emissions controls begin in 2016.
The State of Alaska has sued the EPA to prevent enforcement of the Emissions Control Area in Alaska. The EPA did not comment on the lawsuit.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (18)
Add commentYeah, go ahead and try the "A
Yeah, go ahead and try the "A change to the new fuel, however, could cost the cruise industry millions of dollars per ship" It may have worked with the governor to threaten industry collapse, but the EPA won't give a rats arse!
Re-Instate Cruise Line Surcharge
According to a Washington Post article today, cruise ships in Alaska use diesel that contains 2,000 times or more the amount of sulphur as that used by US trucks, trains and construction equipment. Every single day that 30 cruise ships in Alaska operate, they each emit the same amount of sulfur dioxide as 13 million cars and as much soot as 1 million cars. When multiplied by the 30 ships in the Alaska fleet, those sulfur and soot numbers are totally unacceptable.
Just three years ago the cruise lines placed a $15/day surcharge on Alaska passenger tickets because the price of oil went to $144 a barrel. Today, this new EPA rule also requires more expensive fuel that saves health, lives and the marine environment.
Here is a link to today's Washington Post article:
http://www.adn.com/2012/07/22/2551857/cruise-lines-state-question-new.html
AP article on EPA - diesel rule
Here is a link to the AP article today on this issue in Alaska:
http://www.adn.com/2012/07/22/2551813/alaska-protests-new-fuel-rules.html
Great News
Those of us who live near the cruise ships can breath a little easier!
One of the Carnival ships has a water slide right behind the smoke stacks. Now I call that a memorable cruise -- when your kid gets a diesel tan.
Better hurry up....
and build the road.
brown haze
I have seen cruise ships docked at Skagway making the air in the harbor a dirty brown. If the breeze is moving in from the water the pollution fills the town. Extremely unhealthy, particularly for young children and elderly.
The cruise industry says,"...could cost the cruise industry millions of dollars per ship..." but what does that mean. It is such a generalized statement it really means very little.
Is that over the lifetime of the ship, per year, per trip or what?
They want to bring people up here to show them the relatively pristine environment then pollute it.
Is there anything,
anything at all that Governor Parnell will not do for the oil or cruise ship industry?
Come on Governor, just once, please show some stones and put the people of Alaska before industry. Once. Come on, you can do it!
It's about time
Cruise lines and other shippers in Alaska cleaned up their emissions. Thank you, GWB, for signing the law in 2008 and shame on Parnell for not representing the best interests of Alaskans by filing suit against it.
It's not just cruise ships...
This isn't a cruise ship issue, it's an all ships issue. Including all the ships that deliver all the goods that come into the state. Get ready for everything you buy to cost 8% more. Obviously no one is opposed to clean air, but before we all take the financial hit, it would be nice if the EPA would actually do some testing to make sure it's necessary. Per the Alaska Journal of Commerce (emphasis mine):
"EPA has acknowledged that it failed to perform air modeling in Alaska, but that modeling was done in other areas covered by the emissions control zone. The EPA has also acknowledged, in responses to the state’s comments on its rules, that Alaska enjoys air quality that is generally cleaner than National Ambient Air Quality Standards used by the agency as a baseline for measuring deteriorated air quality."
http://www.alaskajournal.com/Alaska-Journal-of-Commerce/July-Issue-4-201...
So they admit they didn't do modeling to see if Alaska actually needs this change, and they admit that Alaska's air quality is high. Meanwhile, Alaskans are going to get stuck picking up the tab when the increased fuel charges are passed on to us in the form of higher prices on just about everything. Don't blame the cruise lines for speaking out; they just have a bigger megaphone than the rest of us.
"An ice-free Arctic could be
"An ice-free Arctic could be stripped of its rich fisheries in a matter of years, he told the Observer. "There are significant fish resources under the Arctic ice at present. But as that ice disappears, that protection will be removed and we can expect a rush from fishing fleets to exploit them. They have already stripped the North Atlantic of its cod, ling and other fish. Now they have their eyes on the Arctic."
The race for resources in the Arctic will cause an excelleration in climate change much more than people realize. The Arctic should be left as a sanctuary it should not become our next industrial polluted zone.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/22/arctic-ice-melting-oil-drilling
Pollution breaks down much slower in the Arctic and it becomes concentrated in the food chain. Being an Arctic state Alaskans are at a greater risk from all this pollution. Our state has a obligation set fouth in our Constitution to protect our resource for the needs of future generations of Alaskans and we must act now.
http://www.carc.org/pubs/v18no3/1.htm
Even George W. Bush (R)
Even George W. Bush (R) understood there was a need to protect the Arctic from pollution.
Sean Parnell is on the "extreme" right side of the Republican Party.
Lets not allow the extremists in this country to destroy the Alaskan way of life! We have to vote these extremists out of office. Extremists have no business making public policy.
Fuel harmful to human health
We buy most of all goods from China that has practically no pollution control, contributes to over 70% of all the pollution that spreads over the entire earth and no one is complaining about them and we keep their industries churning. If our great Government really cared they would put some embargos on their junk which would create more jobs and industry in the U. S. and force China to stop some of their pollution to stay competitive in the world economy.
Meanwhile all the greenies apparently believe we need to go back to bicycles and sail boats in the U. S. Yes bicycles in all the wet and mud in southeast Alalska and in Anchorage when they have 12 feet of snow. Duh!
Yes I agree China needs to be
Yes I agree China needs to be pressured into cleaning up and
we have to protect what we have here.
Glacier Bay
They advertise the pristine environment, clean air and water of Alaska. Then they pollute air and water without blinking an eye and try to black mail us with threats of withdrawal. Oh it would be horrible if their stores downtown could not sell enough trinkets anymore. But it would be nice to get our clean air back.
I have seen the brown haze emitted by their stacks and trailing behind in Glacier Bay and Cross Sound. It is a disgrace!
The ships rely on residual fuel oil, also known as bunker fuel, to power their huge engines. Bunker fuel is a tar-like sludge left over from the refining of petroleum. It often contains toxic heavy metals such as lead and vanadium and is collected from the bottoms of the distillation towers in which refineries process crude. Raw, unheated bunker fuel has the composition and consistency of asphalt.
This is more than a cruise ship problem ...
As Alaskans, we should all be concerned about the affect it will have on the cost of everything we need and enjoy. This isn't just a cruise ship problem, it's a statewide problem.
Grubby little fingers
I have no use for the EPA's overeach of authority. They are also going to drive up transportation costs on everything else that burns diesel. Locomotives, trucks, ferries, airlines.
The State should look at converting State owned equipment over to operate on natural gas or propane. Washington state and BC are already in the process.
1 - Cheaper operating costs and longer equipment life and lower maintenance costs.
2 - This will give incentive to private industry to follow suit which will create more of a market for natural gas and propane.
3 - The larger demand for home heating, electrical generation, and heavy industry will make a gasline more economical.
It is insane for the Railroad to spend elephant dollars to upgrade locomotives to meet epa standards when they could convert over to natural gas and and be rid of Feds grubby little fingers and at the same time save a ton on fuel. Oh yeah and you get some clean #&@*$ air out of the deal.
What and when will the next set of EPA standards be?
costs
When we talk of costs we usually think of paper money, but what about the environmental costs? We pay the costs associated with money up front but the environmental costs are deferred and often only dealt with when they become a crisis, and sometimes not even then.
I just got a notice from my shipper that costs are going up because of this new EPA rule and as far as I'm concerned thats OK. A price tag can not be put on clean air. It is priceless.
One can have massive monitary wealth but without ones health you basically have nothing.
Rather than convert trains to natural gas, which is really a good interim idea, I would like to eventually see high speed electric trains. They can run cleaner, run sustainably, cheaper and more efficiently than trucking or any petroleum based transportation.
Anchorage has 11 big megawatt class wind turbines going in right now. Thats the very beginning.
On China, buy American when you can. It will put Americans back to work AND reduce China's pollution output. I often go out of my way to find American made products, often researching it on line. Sometimes, for a particular item, there is just is nothing to be found but I think it is in our own best interests to look first. The only way Americans will ever be put back to work is if we create a demand for American made products. If we don't who will?