Post by ferryfast admin on Dec 12, 2011 11:36:56 GMT -5
Permit could keep S.S. Badger car ferry operating
Lake Michigan Carferry president responds to order from EPA
www.htrnews.com/article/20111211/MAN0101/112110429/Permit-could-keep-S-S-Badger-car-ferry-operatin
MANITOWOC — The S.S. Badger car ferry is due to arrive back in port at noon May 24.
"I'm looking forward to making more new friends and having them spend money at our restaurant," downtown Maretti's Deli owner Lee Brocher said Thursday.
But Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and President Barack Obama may influence whether the restaurateur enjoys Badger-linked visitors and dollars after the sailing season that will end in early October.
The coal-fired, steam-powered, 410-foot ship has been ordered by the EPA to quit discharging coal ash by the end of 2012, potentially bringing to a halt its Lake Michigan crossings with passengers, cars and trucks.
"We are confused and frustrated," Bob Manglitz, Lake Michigan Carferry president, said Thursday of his attempts to get EPA approval for an individual discharge permit.
Manglitz, who mailed to the EPA a 14-page petition on Nov. 2, hasn't yet been told whether LMC can even apply for a permit to keep burning coal until an environmentally friendlier fuel can be used.
Manglitz said he had two of his engineers in Florida on Thursday studying the possible use of compressed or liquid natural gas.
"We think that is the answer for the maritime industry," said Manglitz, who hopes to have the Badger be the "greenest" vessel traversing Lake Michigan.
A research consortium, including the University of Wisconsin-Superior, said earlier this month it will study how to convert the Badger to run on "NG" — a complex process that would require retooling the Badger and developing land-based infrastructure for refueling it and other potential users.
That investment, Manglitz said, probably would cost $50 million to $100 million. "That is a huge investment, even for an oil company," he said.
Any such costly conversion is several years into the future, long past when the Badger's "Vessel General Permit" expires.
Mercury dispute
The Badger dumps about 500 tons of coal ash annually, as part of a slurry discharged mid-lake as it traverses the 60 miles from Manitowoc to its homeport of Ludington, Mich.
Coal ash contains low concentrations of arsenic, selenium, lead and mercury, but is not classified as hazardous under current waste laws.
Manglitz said LMC has done its own environmental studies, without EPA prodding, and, "We are very confident that we discharge into Lake Michigan less than one-quarter of an ounce each year.
"At the point of discharge, it would be undetectable … and in 2008, the EPA concluded mercury was not a problem," he said.
However, Tinka Hyde, EPA Region 5 Water Division director, is reviewing LMC's petition to seek an individual discharge permit and she's not prepared, at this point, to declare Badger coal-ash emissions as completely harmless.
"Our role is to ensure the environment in the Great Lakes is protected," Hyde said. "Mercury is a persistent, biocumulative pollutant that never goes away."
She said EPA scientists don't really know how much mercury is in the Badger's coal ash and that LMC's analysis uses methods that may not be relevant to assessing the substance's threat to water quality.
Manglitz may be unhappy with having to jump through multiple regulatory hoops to get an extension of the Badger's current propulsion method, but, "We have to determine whether (LMC's) petition merits us asking them for an individual permit application based on regulations we have to follow."
Hyde said EPA officials also want to know the levels of other pollutant metals, like arsenic, cadmium and selenium in the coal ash.
EPA officials can take into account the economic impact of mandating adoption of new technology.
An EPA official said it may be several more weeks before it is determined whether LMC can take the next step and seek an individual permit.
Congressional help
In November, U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, and two Michigan congressmen attached and had unanimously approved by the House a Coast Guard authorization bill containing language that essentially would allow the Badger to keep burning coal indefinitely, with the vessel having National Historic Landmark status.
"The reason we went the legislative route is because we did not receive feedback from the EPA," said Lynda Matson, LMC's vice president of customer service, of numerous conversations and contacts between the company and federal officials in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
On Wednesday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett urged the National Park Service to delay action on the measure. Milwaukee is home to Lake Express, which also ferries cars and passengers across Lake Michigan.
Based on a study by a Michigan economics professor, Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels has said the Badger's estimated economic impact on the two port cities is about $25 million annually and is responsible for 250 direct and 500 indirect jobs.
In an interview Tuesday, Petri stressed nonfiscal reasons why he supports the Badger's continuing operations, either burning coal or another fuel.
The Republican congressman, who represents the 6th District, which includes Manitowoc County, said hundreds of cars and semi-trailers aren't creating emissions driving a couple hundred miles around Chicago when they are in the hold of the Badger sailing across Lake Michigan.
LMC's November petition to the EPA claims "millions of pounds" of pollutants are not emitted by the vehicles traveling on the Badger.
In a statement to the Herald Times Reporter, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Milwaukee, stated he is "seeking a compromise that maintains the Badger and its services while addressing real concerns about the water quality of Lake Michigan."
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, expressed support for LMC's attempts to get an opportunity to make its case for an individual operating license.
"It's appropriate for the EPA to consider the Badger's case for a permit to continue its operation," Johnson stated. "(The EPA) should follow the law, and consider an application.
"The Badger has been operating for more than 50 years," Johnson stated. "If it is shut down, it would put hundreds of people out of work in an already bad economy."
LMC officials have acknowledged the authorization bill that would enable the Badger to keep operating as is faces an uncertain future in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
Any federal bill including the favorable language for the Badger would need to be signed by Obama.
Marketing icon
Greg Buckley, Two Rivers city manager, is a member of S.O.S. — Save Our Ship — that includes efforts by citizens and civic leaders in the two homeports to support the Badger.
"Many are continuing beyond Manitowoc and Two Rivers, but to be located at the terminus of any major transportation link has great economic benefits," Buckley said of the Badger's financial impact from about 45,000 automobile owners, with passengers, traveling on the vessel each season.
"The Badger is such an iconic image for the area … Manitowoc, in particular, as Wisconsin's maritime capitol with its rich shipbuilding heritage," Buckley said. "It is an iconic image and attraction in its own right … it is more than a piece of conveyance."
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S.S. Badger
www.ssbadger.com/home.aspx
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Researchers may find a way to keep Lake Michigan's old S.S. Badger afloat
By Ron Meador | Published Mon, Dec 12 2011 9:00 am
www.minnpost.com/earthjournal/2011/12/12/33699/researchers_may_find_a_way_to_keep_lake_michigans_old_ss_badger_afloat
There may be people who enjoy spending part of a vacation getting through Chicago by car, but I have yet to meet one.
No matter the time of day, the time of year or the state of Illinois' road-repair budget, Chicagoland freeways are an agony — speeders and road-ragers, gridlock and tailgaters, detours and craters and huge, filthy trucks. Had Dante been a modern midwesterner, his Inferno might have included a tenth circle of hell, laid out along the Eisenhower, the Kennedy, the Stevenson, the Bishop Ford and the unholy Ryan.
But as quite a few Minnesotans have found over the years, there is a better way — in fact, a way better way. Instead of driving around Lake Michigan, you and your car can sail across on the S.S. Badger.
So it was good to hear last week that researchers from Minnesota and Wisconsin will try to find a way to repower the elderly, coal-burning Badger with natural gas, and thereby keep it from going aground on modern pollution rules.
A midnight cruise across Michigan
Last July, en route to western New York, Sallie and I boarded the Badger in Manitowoc, Wis. It was shortly before midnight, warm and breezy under clear skies.
Though it can carry up to 180 cars and more than 600 people, the Badger gets under way so smoothly we weren't sure we were moving until we saw the lights of Manitowoc falling away.
We climbed to the open upper deck and, grinning like teenagers, pulled sleeping bags out of our packs and stretched out on lounge chairs for a short night's sleep under the stars.
The Badger took us from zero to Woodstock in a heartbeat. Four hours later, at dawn, we stepped off her gangway and into our waiting car in Ludington, Mich. — rested, refreshed and ready for breakfast.
In all, it took us less than 24 hours to get from our home just east of Stillwater to our destination near Buffalo. Had we driven the whole way, it would have been about 900 miles and 15 hours behind the wheel — too many of them circling Chicago.
A dirty little problem
But there is a problem with the Badger that has finally caught the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And it's not the one you might assume from the huge brown plume that trails behind her smokestacks.
The Badger dumps coal sludge overboard at the rate of nearly one ton per trip.
MinnPost/Ron MeadorThe Badger belches pollutants, but also dumps coal sludge overboard at the rate of nearly one ton per trip.
The issue here isn't coal smoke but coal ash, which the Badger makes into a slurry and dumps overboard at the rate of nearly one ton per trip, 3.8 tons per day, more than 500 tons per season.
In 2008, under court order to enforce pollution standards in the Great Lakes, EPA gave the Badger's operators till the end of next year — five operating seasons — to quit dumping ash or quit operating altogether. Sad to say, the company's response has fallen well short of cooperative.
First it challenged the EPA's authority to regulate the ash-dumping, preparing tests that purported to show the coal ash wasn't harmful in terms of mercury or other toxics. EPA disagreed.
Next, it launched a "Save the S.S. Badger" publicity campaign, blanketing the boat and businesses all over Manitowoc and Ludington with leaflets that were long on emotional appeals and short on specifics. The overall impression left by the materials I saw last summer was that the EPA had suddenly noticed the Badger, after 50-some years of problem-free operation, and ordered it to make immediate, impossible repairs.
An outrageous move in Congress
Most outrageous, a few months ago the Badger's operators got a couple of congressmen to introduce a special bill permitting the boat to be declared a national historic landmark and, therefore, potentially exempt from EPA regulation.
In fact, the Badger does have some historic status as the last coal-fired passenger steamship operating in the United States. It is already a registered state landmark in both Michigan and Wisconsin.
But should that entitle the boat to permanent exemption from water-pollution rules? Nobody but the operators and their allies thinks so.
In my own view, it might justify some lenience on EPA's part in giving the Badger a little more time to come into compliance — but only if the company was working in good faith to find a solution, rather than repeatedly trying to sail around the rules.
I've grown fond of this funky old boat, with its battered demeanor and industrial aromas and fancifully marketed "staterooms." Judging by the license plates on vehicles streaming down her ramps every time we ride her, so have lots of other Minnesotans.
So I'm heartened to hear that researchers at the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute think it may be feasible to repower the boat with natural gas — a conversion that fleets of car ferries in Europe have been making for some time now.
In addition to the benefits the old boat delivers in terms of enhanced driver sanity, it's an important contributor to the regional tourism economies around Manitowoc and Ludington. There may even be some net environmental benefit to taking all those cars off the roadways for a while. But if the Badger can't or won't follow the rules, it deserves to follow the lake's other ferries into history.
That will still leave an option for ferry loyalists — the Lake Express, a higher-priced boat that makes the crossing from Milwaukee to Muskegon with three round trips a day to the Badger's two, and in just two and a half hours to the Badger's four.
Speed isn't really the point, but it's supposed to be a pretty nice boat. No doubt it beats driving around Chicago.
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