Ban ocean vessels in lakes? Some are floating the idea

As invasive species multiply, plan no longer looks radical

By DAN EGAN
[email protected]

Posted: April 21, 2007

The idea of banning oceangoing vessels from the Great Lakes to halt the onslaught of invasive species would have been universally dismissed as nonsense just a few years ago.

Not anymore.

Frustrated with ocean freighters dumping invasive species that are ravaging native fisheries, despoiling prized beaches and costing water-dependent industries billions of dollars, the conservation group Great Lakes United proposed an overseas-freighter ban in late March, the day before the St. Lawrence Seaway was rousted from its winter slumber for its 49th season.

The group argues that the idea of slamming shut the Seaway to oceangoing "salties" has become an environmental and economic no-brainer, like padlocking a struggling little factory that is ruining life for everyone in town because it won't fix its oversize smokestack.

The concept is fraught with legal issues, not the least of which is the fact that the United States must coordinate any such decision with Canada, co-owner of the Seaway.

But it is also picking up steam - on both sides of the political aisle.

"Three years ago, I'd have said, 'That's a little radical.' Now it's probably more realistic," says Patty Birkholz, a Michigan Republican state senator who has pushed for greater ballast regulation.

Evidence suggests that the costs of the biological pollution gushing from the ship-steadying ballast tanks far outweigh the benefits of maintaining the world's largest freshwater system as a nautical highway for saltwater traffic.

A draft study from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, meanwhile, indicates that recreational boats dwarf overseas freighters in terms of economic importance to the region, yet the recreation industry is entirely dependent on the very waters the salties continue to irreversibly pollute.

The overseas shipping industry acknowledges there is a problem and says it's time to pass a new federal law to phase in ballast treatment systems. But the industry is burning much of the lingering sympathy it has enjoyed by suing the State of Michigan over its efforts to address the ballast problem on its own with a new law restricting contaminated discharges.

Great Lakes United isn't proposing a permanent ban on oceangoing vessels. But it has taken the extreme position that the ships should be blocked from the Great Lakes until they are equipped with sterilization systems for their ballast tanks, something the shipping industry says will take time to develop.

"I'd personally be very much for outlawing the salties," says Racine Mayor Gary Becker, vice chairman of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. Becker says he'd welcome the boats back once they figure out how to stop polluting the lakes. He makes it clear he is not speaking for the binational coalition of Great Lakes mayors, but says many colleagues agree that continuing to allow oceangoing traffic at this point "just doesn't make a lot of sense."

More than shipping

At least 183 foreign organisms are thriving in the Great Lakes. A new one is discovered about once every six months. Research shows that overseas vessels are to blame for the majority of the arrivals during the past few decades.

This biological pollution is no longer something that can just be written off as a cost of doing business on the Great Lakes, because Great Lakes business today involves far more than the massive freighters.

Recreational boating, in fact, might well be the most important industry floating on the big lakes, according to a draft study by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Following a directive from Congress in 1999, the Army Corps has finally come up with a figure that recreational boat owners have been wondering about for more than a decade. The agency known for its focus on big engineering projects for commercial navigation says those little boats are a $5.5 billion business in the Great Lakes.

The report says the eight Great Lakes states are home to 4.3 million private boats, about a third of the U.S. total. Nearly a quarter of them are owned by individuals who live in counties along the Great Lakes shoreline. The average owner spends about $3,600 per year on boating.

Yet commercial navigation clearly remains the Army Corps' priority. Just a few years ago, the corps suggested looking at a $10 billion expansion of the Seaway to accommodate bigger vessels. The agency backed off after a public outcry.

Costly proposition

It is now in the process of analyzing what it will take to keep the aging Seaway open, and it won't be cheap. The original system of locks and channels, which are crumbling in places, cost $3 billion in today's dollars. Then there are the costs of dredging and maintaining channels and harbors in ports across the Great Lakes.

Yet, because of invasive species, some see these navigation projects as being at cross purposes with the interests of the recreational boating industry.

"The federal government is putting all the resources and emphasis on the wrong industry," says Ned Dikmen, chairman of Great Lakes Boating Federation, a recreational boating group. Dikmen contends that the recreational industry is likely worth much more than the estimates in the draft report.

Commercial navigation on the Great Lakes generates about $3.4 billion in business revenue a year in the U.S., according to the Army Corps. Often lost in that big number is the fact that the vast majority of Great Lakes shipping is just that - ships sailing solely within the Great Lakes, moving low-value bulk cargoes such as iron ore and coal from one regional port to another.

These "lakers" never leave the Great Lakes. They are not responsible for introducing unwanted species from foreign ports.

Salties are the problem.

Yet those ships - which have been able to access the Great Lakes only since the St. Lawrence Seaway builders punched a deep-draft shipping channel into the heart of the continent in 1959 - account for less than 7% of the total cargo moved on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, according to the Army Corps.

And their cargo is not high-value goods such as flat-screen televisions, basketball shoes and imported cars. The ships typically arrive with loads of foreign steel and depart with Midwest grain. It is a relatively small amount of both, largely because of the Seaway's outdated, undersized locks and the fact that they shut down each winter because of ice.

One widely cited estimate of the annual transportation savings associated with overseas traffic in the Great Lakes is a skimpy $55 million.

The estimated price to date just for dealing with zebra and quagga mussels since they were first discovered in the lakes: $2 billion.

Steaming into court

The State of Michigan decided to tackle the problem on its own, passing legislation requiring salties to either promise they won't discharge ballast in state waters or install systems that will kill the unwanted hitchhikers. It was immensely popular in a place that bills itself as the Great Lakes State and was endorsed by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

The new rules, passed in 2005, kick in this year, but Michigan has provided a grace period by allowing ships to discharge untreated ballast during this shipping season, provided ship operators provide samples of what they are dumping to the state.

The shippers balked, suing last month to block the new law.

Bill author Birkholz says she was flabbergasted. If anything, she says, it should be the State of Michigan suing the shippers for bringing in so many unwanted organisms.

Steve Fisher, executive director of the American Great Lakes Ports Association, says the shipping industry embraces the idea of new laws to regulate ballast discharges, but he says it should be done at the federal level so ship operators are not stuck trying to navigate a patchwork of state laws.

At the same time, he says the Michigan law will do no environmental good because the few freighters that do discharge ballast in state water will simply take their cargoes to nearby out-of-state ports on the same waterways that Michigan is trying to protect.

Is plan unconstitutional?

Fisher is confident his side will prevail in court because there are a number of legal problems with the Michigan law, including its potential violation of the Constitution's commerce clause, which provides for the free flow of goods between states. He is also skeptical that the treatment systems mandated by Michigan will actually work. But momentum is building in other states to pass laws similar to Michigan's, including Wisconsin.

"We tried to do ballast legislation last session, and it didn't get through," says Scott Hassett, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. "But I'll take another run at it, and I'm confident something will happen this time."

Some environmental groups, including the National Wildlife Federation and the Alliance for the Great Lakes, have joined the State of Michigan as defendants in the shipping industry's lawsuit.

"In some ways I feel like the environmental community is doing the shippers a huge favor," says Cameron Davis, executive director of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "By delaying solutions to this enormous economic and ecological problem, the oceangoing shipping industry is its own worst enemy. It's innovate or die."

'Not anti-shipping'

Jennifer Nalbone of Great Lakes United says it's time for the overseas industry to die, though she'll welcome its resuscitation once the boats are equipped with ballast treatment systems.

"We're not anti-shipping," she says. "We're anti-shipping that destroys the lakes."

New U.S. Seaway boss Terry Johnson calls Nalbone's pitch to kick the ships off the lakes "a nice political statement but . . . completely impractical and impossible" and points to the two countries' joint ownership of the Seaway and their treaty governing its operation as a big reason why.

Federal ballast law supporter and U.S. Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) isn't so dismissive.

"It's certainly a serious proposal," he says. "It's stimulating some thought among large groups . . . and if they get a lot of support, people are going to start looking at it."

Nalbone says she too prefers a federal law that will make the ships operate in a manner that protects the lakes, but she says she's done waiting.

"It's all talk. People talk a good talk. But nothing is happening," Nalbone says. "You can talk about it for another five or six years. Fine. As long as you don't bring in the ships."

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is also pushing for a federal ballast law. Similar federal bills have gone nowhere for the past several years, but he is confident a Democrat-controlled Congress can get something done.

Oberstar is in a tough spot trying to balance the needs of the shipping-dependent city of Duluth that he represents against an industry he has said is "destroying" the Great Lakes. He stops short of endorsing an outright prohibition on oceangoing vessels until treatment systems are onboard the ships. But he harbors sympathy for those who do.

"I welcome . . . their impatience, and their zeal," he says. "I think it's terrific."

From the April 22, 2007 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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