Cruise ships must cut air pollution, including on Seattle-Alaska sailing
Source: Juliet Eilperin, The Wahsington Post
WHITTIER, Alaska — The gleaming white Sapphire Princess docked in this deep-water port this month, unloading its passengers and taking on 2,600 more guests headed first to Glacier Bay and eventually to Vancouver, B.C. Every day of that trip the cruise ship — whose website invites passengers to see Alaska's "pristine landscapes" — will emit the same amount of sulfur dioxide as 13.1 million cars, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and as much soot as 1.06 million cars.
But starting Aug. 1, the Sapphire Princess and every other large ship traveling within 200 miles of the coasts of the United States and Canada will have to burn cleaner fuel. (Many cruise ships bound for Alaska depart from Seattle; others leave from Vancouver, B.C.)
These new restrictions — which will phase out the world's dirtiest transportation fuel in U.S. waters — represent one of Barack Obama administration's most ambitious, and least-noticed, anti-pollution programs. But they have prompted a major counteroffensive from the cruise industry as well as several lawmakers, who argue that they will raise costs for vacationers and Alaskans who depend on oceangoing vessels for basic foodstuffs.
"This is the sleeping giant no one is paying attention to," said William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which lobbied for the new rule and represents officials from state and local air agencies across the country.
For years, large ships have burned a heavy fuel with 2,000 times or more the amount of sulfur as the diesel fuel used by trucks, locomotives, construction equipment and small marine vessels.
George W. Bush's administration proposed limiting sulfur dioxide emissions for ships in 2007; the International Maritime Organization three years later adopted the joint U.S.-Canadian proposal to create an "Emissions Control Area" within 200 miles of shore. Countries bordering the Baltic and North Sea enacted similar limits in the late 1990s.
The new rule requires large ships to cut the sulfur content of their fuel, which now averages 2.7 percent, down to 1 percent next month; in 2015 it must drop to 0.1 percent.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
|
