Container ships causing controversy

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A multiyear battle by the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District to tighten environmental restrictions on 7,000 container ships that pass through the Santa Barbara Channel each year reached a new height yesterday, when the district announced it had informed the Environmental Protection Agency it plans to sue if changes aren’t made soon.

Officials at the district say the container ships, which traverse the channel’s shipping lane on their way to Los Angeles area ports and are generally owned by foreign companies, are responsible for belching as much as 45 percent of the county’s recorded oxides of nitrogen (NOx) into the air.
While not all of the pollutants emitted by the ships find their way to land, the 14,000 tons of NOx that does is far too much for Terry Dressler, director of the district, to stomach.
“[These ships] are one of the last large uncontrolled sources of air pollution left,” Dressler said. “Ships passing through the Santa Barbara Channel produce many tons of air pollution off our coast, threatening our air quality.
“We have called on EPA repeatedly to issue regulations without success. Litigation is always the last resort, but we have exhausted our other options.”
Dressler said the ships’ main source of pollution comes from their massive two-stroke engines that burn a fuel called No. 6 bunker, which he said is high in sulfur.
Dressler said a good first step to cleaning up the ships would be to force owners to burn cleaner fuel. Once that’s done, he said ship builders should be forced to install more efficient engines and old engines should be retrofitted with emission control equipment.
A “notice of intent to file clean air act citizen suit” letter was sent to the EPA by William M. Dillon, deputy counsel for Santa Barbara County, on Oct. 18.
The reason for the possible suit, according to the letter, is the failure of the EPA to comply with a mandatory deadline for regulating the ship’s engines, which was set by previous litigation for April 27, 2007.
When that date came and went, he said the district realized it needed to take matters into its own hands.
Dressler said if the EPA does not act in the next 60 days, the district’s 12 member board, which is made up of the Board of Supervisors and one representative from each of the county’s cities, will decide if a lawsuit should be filed.
If a lawsuit is filed, Santa Barbara County won’t be alone in their fight.
Dressler said the South Coast Air Quality Management District and an environmental group called Friends of the Earth each have pending lawsuits against the EPA on the same topic.
Jessica Emond, deputy press secretary for the EPA, said in a prepared statement that the EPA is committed to improving the air quality in Southern California and has already proposed initiatives that will reduce pollutants emitted by the ships.
“Earlier this year, EPA took action to dramatically reduce air pollution from ships by proposing the most stringent international emissions standards ever,” she said.
Emond said these proposals were submitted to the International Maritime Organization, which would oversee any widespread regulatory measures. She said the EPA plans to hear back from the Maritime Organization later this year.
Emond said she couldn’t comment on the threat of a lawsuit by the County of Santa Barbara.
If the process of regulating the ship’s emissions isn’t undertaken soon, Dressler predicts the percentage of NOx emitted into county air by the towering vessels could top 75 percent by 2020.
At the ships’ current NOx pollutant level of 45 percent, Dressler said the ships are the single biggest polluter in the county, followed by automobiles at 30 percent and stationary polluters, such as offshore oil platforms and oil processing facilities, which make up the remaining 25 to 30 percent.
Dressler said the county generally meets the federal standard for air quality, but fails the state’s “eight hour ozone standard” about 12 times per year.
He said the state and federal government set the standards, and in Santa Barbara County, its up to the district to whittle pollutants down until the standards are met.
Dressler admitted that one of the hang-ups with any restrictions are that the majority of the ships that cruise through the Santa Barbara Channel each year are “foreign flagged.” As a result, he said regulatory measures get wrapped up in international trade treaties and get nowhere fast.
But Dressler insists this should not be an excuse to continue flagrantly polluting.
Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf, one of the nine members of the board of directors who voted to send the letter to the EPA, said the high level of pollutants coming from the ships, which often sail a mere 10 to 15 miles off shore, came as a surprise.
“It’s been something that was pretty shocking to me,” Wolf said. “And I’m very happy that we’ve taken this first step to get some federal rules in place.
“I’m just really glad that we’re steeping forward and taking a stand on this.”