| People in the Blue Water Area seek needed relief from the heat, but the health of the Great Lakes region suffers. Here are several sobering facts: » Larger lake trout in Lake Michigan have contaminants hazardous to human health. » Michigan Senate Bill 248 is designed to reduce public land, regardless of the impact on connecting waterways, wildlife habitat and migratory birds. » Michigan ranks number six in the nation for dirty air, with resulting serious health problems. » New Asian carp DNA has shown up well beyond the electric barrier designed to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes. » As if all of the above doesn’t leave one’s head spinning, U.S. House members have pressed to gut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s duty to protect our water and public health. While summer is a time for leisure, the health of the Great Lakes region does not have such relief. Given the indifference in Washington and Lansing, things could just get worse. Our voices can make a significant difference. As stewards of the Great Lakes region, we can communicate our concerns about Michigan Senate Bill 248 with Gov. Rick Snyder. We can communicate with Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow the urgency to maintain the integrity of the EPA. We can communicate to the Obama administration the need to speed up action to protect the Great Lakes from advancing Asian carp. We can communicate with Washington and Lansing to keep the “heat” on hot-button issues regarding the Great Lakes and our public health. Contact: » Gov. Rick Snyder Executive Office P.O. Box 30013 Lansing, 48909 » U.S. Sen. Carl Levin 269 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C., 20510 » U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow 133 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C.,, 20510 John Heidtke lives in Port Huron.
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August 4th, 2011 at 11:04 am
The problem of ballast water has a long history of being addressed by the Coast Guard with out much accomplished or enthusiasm to protect American waters. The continued problem of ballast water pollution from bacteria, virus, nuclear waste water, oil, tar balls, and other invasive s is still obviously problematic. The concept of state rights being used to protect state waters as a results of the Federal governments failure to act should be respected, but until we have leadership in our country that will address ballast water with comprehensive legislation to address all the issues and quell the state rights issues used by some to curtail enforceable, concise and meaningful plans to create national legislation requiring mandatory installation of technology,(under the guise of stronger state regulations) shipping will not bother to spend the money.
Legislation with a short time line mandating expenditures by shipping to install technologies, while authorizing the Coast Guard to take on a mission of inspection, testing, and surveillance will be the only way to ensure that short cuts and total compliance will be adhered to by foreign sea captains representing foreign economic interest delivering foreign manufactured products. Legislation creating comprehensive Coast Guard authorization to protect our countries against the use of these systems as a tool to discharge biological or toxic substances as a weapon of terror, destruction, or just the greed of shipping’s economic interest, is the best fix.
Sadly it looks as though under this commander and chief the Coast Guard will continue to follow the IMO an international organization primarily made up of foreign economic interest and their dilution is the solution plan.
The following is from a report prepared for congress in DEC 2009 “Although estimates of the costs of ballast treatment may be imprecise and vary from vessel to
vessel, there is some general agreement on average costs.14 For example, it may cost an estimated
$400,000 per vessel for modification of container/bulk vessels to use onshore ballast water
treatment facilities at California ports. More generally, the cost of retrofitting vessels to treat
ballast water has been estimated at between $200,000 and $310,000 per vessel for mechanical
treatment and around $300,000 for chemical treatment.15 Most of this expense will be borne by
foreign shipping companies, as the U.S. flag fleet is a small percentage of the global fleet,16 and
likely passed along to consumers of products imported on these ships.”
Our largest employers are providing the largest employment opportunities in America as store clerks selling foreign made goods, and in a election year as Americans are out of work and employment numbers will matter, do not expect much of a “change” in the Coast Guard policy under this commander and chief who has not bothered to address the problem for the last three years. Unfortunately do not hold out “hope” as the continued health risk and destruction resulting from a weak Coast Guard plan will continue to affect Americas economic structure, health and environment long after the election results of 2012.