greatlakesshipwatchers.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

See Also:

• Tall ships to arrive between 4 and 6 p.m. Thursday - Duluth News Tribune
• Duluth Maritime Festival Official Website

Steve Kuchera | Source: Duluth News Tribune

The Twin Ports will be treated this week to a spectacle not seen in decades — three stately tall ships sailing into harbor.

“You would probably have to go back to the late 1800s or early 1900s before you had a number of tall sailing ships in the harbor at the same time,” said Gene Shaw, director of public relations for Visit Duluth, which is helping sponsor the Duluth Maritime Festival.

The three-day festival will feature entertainers, crafts, food and a focus on Duluth’s maritime history. Its centerpiece will be the ships Madeline, Niagara and Pride of Baltimore II.

The Niagara and Pride of Baltimore II are replicas of ships from the War of 1812, while the Madeline represents the type of schooner that was widely used to carry cargo across the Great Lakes during the mid to late-1800s.

“They are wonderful, wonderful tools to teach us about our past,” Pat Labadie said. “In 1870, there were 2,000 sailing ships on the Great Lakes. There were a consistent stream of them in the 1860s and ’70s.”

What happened to the old schooners, more about the Festival at the Duluth News Tribune >>

See Also: Photo Gallery of Sea Trials by Dick Lund

by Rick Barrett | Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A prototype of a smaller, speedy Navy combat ship is undergoing sea trials on Lake Michigan this week as it nears completion at a shipyard in Marinette.

The 378-foot vessel, named Freedom, has been built by the Manitowoc Marine Group, the ship-fleet division of Manitowoc Co.

Monday, the Manitowoc prototype underwent its first sea trials on Green Bay. The ship reached speeds of about 15 knots but is capable of cutting through the water much faster.

Manitowoc, as part of a team headed by Lockheed Martin Corp., will compete with another team headed by General Dynamics for the right to build the combat ships. A number of prototypes could be built and tested before the Navy settles on a final design.

The Navy envisions a competition for the ship’s final design. Eventually it could buy 55 of the warships for quick-strike operations along shallow coastlines, where enemy forces are able to hide from bigger Navy vessels.

Besides Freedom, Manitowoc is pursuing other large marine contracts that could result in millions of dollars in sales.

One of the contracts would be for a fleet of 150-foot Coast Guard cutters that would keep the company’s shipyard busy for years.

… Manitowoc, through its Marinette Marine Corp. division, has a contract to build other boats for the Coast Guard. The 45-foot boats, powered by a jet drive propulsion system, are capable of reaching speeds of 40 to 50 mph. They are meant to replace the aging fleet of 41-foot boats built more than 30 years ago.

Eventually, the Coast Guard says it could order as many as 250 of the 45-foot boats at a total value of up to $600 million.

Much more about Manitowoc’s bids, contracts and company performance at the Journal Sentinel >>

Source: EPA Press Release

Over 30 representatives of local, state and federal government agencies and community groups will test their readiness to respond to aquatic invaders in the Great Lakes in a three day exercise in Presque Isle Bay, Pa., starting July 29. Participants will exercise on the water on July 30. This is the first time that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office has brought together a variety of groups in such an exercise. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is hosting the pilot exercise which may be repeated elsewhere in the Great Lakes and other watersheds.

During the exercise, participants will trawl for fish and practice using fish electroshocking equipment to prepare for a real-life situation where these techniques could be used to confirm the presence of an invasive species. By working together in an exercise, agencies will learn ways they can combine assets and overcome jurisdictional barriers to respond quickly to the introduction of harmful aquatic species. Read the rest of this entry »

by Dan Egan | Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A coalition of conservation groups has found what it considers a yawning hole in a bill that would require overseas freighters to install ballast treatment systems to protect the Great Lakes and other waterways from invasive species.

The 14 conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, sent a letter Friday to Wisconsin Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl urging the Democrats to oppose the measure that has so far enjoyed widespread support.

Their worry is the legislation may supersede provisions of the Clean Water Act and insulate the shipping industry from future suits under that law.

It might also pre-empt states such as Wisconsin from taking their own actions to protect state waters from biological pollution that is costing billions of dollars in beach-trashing algae outbreaks, fish and wildlife declines and troubles for water-dependent industries in the Great Lakes region.

“A lot of us have been puzzling for some time as to why Great Lakes groups have embraced what started as an industry bill, and still has serious defects,” said Nina Bell, executive director of the Portland, Ore.-based Northwest Environmental Advocates, one of the groups that sued the EPA over the ballast issue.

Bell argues that the shipping industry supports the ballast bill because it fears having to comply with the Clean Water Act, and the language in the new bill can be interpreted to exempt ballast water from that law. That could prevent citizens and states from taking future legal action against the industry.

She noted the bill also designates the Coast Guard, not the EPA, as the lead agency for enforcing ballast regulations, and the Coast Guard has a history of ignoring congressional directives when it comes to regulating ballast discharges. Further, the bill prohibits states from passing future tougher ballast laws if they determine the federal law isn’t getting the job done. Wisconsin and Minnesota are at the moment considering such measures.

Bell also has a problem with what she said is an overly generous grace period for the shipping industry to install adequate ballast treatment technology. Under the House bill, ships that install treatment systems that accomplish what she sees as unacceptably loose protections would be exempt from having to install better systems in the following decade. In some cases, she said, that means ships could be exempt from paying for more meaningful treatment systems until 2021.

Much more to this story at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel >>

Source: Great Lakes Maritime Task Force Press Release

Great Lakes interests are urging Great Lakes Senators to take the lead and enact the world’s most stringent Federal ballast water standards to end the introduction of non-indigenous species into U.S. waters. Legislation passed by the House of Representatives and approved by the Senate Commerce Committee would require vessels entering U.S. waters to comply with standards that are 100 times greater than existing international standards.

The House legislation, H.R. 2830, sponsored by Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), and supported by Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), ranking Republican on the Coast Guard subcommittee, has been endorsed both by the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force (GLMTF), an association of shipping companies, labor organizations, shipyards and ports, and a wide-ranging coalition of environmental groups, including Great Lakes United, National Wildlife Federation, Healing Our Waters Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, and The Nature Conservancy.

“For more than a decade Congress has wrestled with this issue, but this year we have seen a number of breakthroughs,” said Patrick J. O’Hern, President of the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force and Vice President and General Manager of Bay Shipbuilding Company. “The ballast water title from the House’s Coast Guard Authorization Bill (H.R. 2830) is supported by both commercial maritime interests and the vast majority of environmental interests. The legislation is tough. An official from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared that the pending legislation is ‘much more stringent’ than any standards the EPA could apply under current law.”

It appeared the legislation would move forward last week, but objections from Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) have stalled approval.

“It is deeply regrettable we lost what may have been the best chance for enactment of ballast water legislation ever,” said Daniel L, Smith, 1st Vice President of GLMTF and formerly National Executive Vice President of American Maritime Officers. Read the rest of this entry »

by Jeff Alexander | Source: The Muskegon Chronicle

A potential showdown is brewing between state and federal agencies over the U.S. Coast Guard’s longstanding practice of allowing freighters to wash unlimited amounts of coal and other cargo residues into the Great Lakes.

Each year, the Great Lakes shipping fleet washes upwards of two million pounds of cargo residue — primarily coal, limestone and iron ore — off freighters and into the lakes. The practice, used since the 1930s, prevents cargo residues from contaminating subsequent loads of other materials.

Federal law and an international treaty prohibit ships from dumping waste into the Great Lakes. But the practice has continued because Congress in 1993 approved a temporary policy, a loophole essentially, that allowed it on an interim basis. The Coast Guard now wants to make that policy permanent.

… “Minnesota solid waste rules prohibit the disposal of solid waste into waters of the state of Minnesota, including Lake Superior,” said Paul Eger, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, in a letter to the Coast Guard.

Eger disputed the Coast Guard’s claim that cargo residues washed off ships sink quickly and do not harm water quality.

“Coal has been observed and collected by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency on the shoreline beach of Minnesota Point, Duluth,” Eger said. “This coal did not dissolve or dissipate in the waters of the lake, but instead floated and accumulated along the beach in Duluth.”

Michigan officials said they were unaware freighter operators washed cargo residues into the lakes until 2006, when The Chronicle first reported on the practice.

“Such discharges appear to be in violation of Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act,” said Rich Powers, chief of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Water Bureau, in a letter to the Coast Guard.

More to the story — quotes, rebuttals and study results — at the Muskegon Chronicle >>

by Kim Schneider | Source: Michigan Travel News

I’m sitting at the helm of a 100-ton, two-masted schooner, trying to keep Fisherman’s Island near Charlevoix in northern Michigan to the right of the bowsprit.

It may not sound that tough, but then wind power can be pretty impressive when it catches my 3,000 square feet of canvas, on one of the largest sailing vessels on the Great Lakes. And it’s not like driving a car. Or so crew member Kent Gorham reminds me when I steer too sharply, then overcorrect, to the peril of a couple dozen passengers I may just have made a bit seasick.

Take a breather

The motto on the tall ship Manitou, based out of Traverse City, could be “forced relaxation.” On this replica of a 19th-century schooner — a floating bed and breakfast — passengers spend their days sipping coffee on the glistening deck, learning a new rope wrapping technique or settling into a nook with a book as the ship gently rocks them to a state of calm.

… I surrender the wheel only after ship chef Carey Draeger squeezes by with a platter of mint chip cookies, fresh from the fickle woodstove she calls Leo. Close behind is a pot of homemade gumbo, a platter of fresh cornbread. This will hold us over until we reach the Charlevoix harbor where we’ll savor some marinated shrimp spring rolls paired with aromatic white wines of the 45th Parallel before a dinner of Moroccan roast chicken, spiced couscous and pecan pineapple upside down cake.

On this wine-themed cruise, you see, our foray into shipboard life of the 1800s comes with a decidedly modern gourmet twist.

Other themed sails include music, astronomy, fall foliage and an unusual chocolate and storytelling combo being offered for the first time this fall. But our “wine” theme has drawn foodies from around the country….

Awesome story, photos, and link to Manitou’s website and schedule at Michigan Travel News >>

Source: WZZM13

The main attractions of the 2008 Coast Guard Festival arrived today in Grand Haven.

Two U.S. Coast Guard Cutters made their official entrance into the Grand River this afternoon.

Families started gathering in the park Monday morning.

Dan VanderMeer and his son Brendan, claimed their spot early. “Yep, we got here around noon so we could get underneath one of these trees”, says Dan.

The boat parade is a tradition for families like the VanderMeers. This year, it’s the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw and the Biscayne Bay. “I’ve seen both of them, but every time, it’s still fun.”

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and the wait was an easy one. As the ships made their way through the channel, the crowds went wild.

Grand Haven is one of five cities called “Coast Guard City USA”….

Full story, pictures and video at WZZM13 >>

** WZZM13 also welcomes photos from throughout the week.

by Tom Peters | Source: The Chronicle Herald

The Dutch Runner made its inaugural call at the Port of Halifax on Friday, kicking off a long-awaited short sea service between Halifax and the Great Lakes.

Great Lakes Feeder Lines of Burlington, Ont., plans to operate the service between Toronto, Montreal and Halifax, on an eight- to nine-day rotation.

“We are pleased to see there is a ship in the service now and the options it gives the users of the port,” said Patrick Bohan, Halifax Port Authority’s manager of business development.

In addition to containers, he said, the vessel also carries heavy lift cargo, “which is particularly problematic to move inland without a service like this.”

…The ship unloaded 60 containers and two 70-tonne boilers destined for Singapore.

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald >>

Source: USCG

The Coast Guard medically evacuated a 19-year-old female from the Brig Niagara at approximately 12:40 p.m. in the St. Mary’s River System today.

A Coast Guard Station Sault Ste. Marie 30-foot response boat was launched to assist the ailing woman because she was suffering symptoms of appendicitis.

The female was taken to awaiting Emergency Medical Services onshore at Coast Guard Station Sault Ste. Marie, and then she was transported to a local hospital.

This was the second medical evacuation case for Station Sault Ste. Marie in two days.

Source: USCG

The Coast Guard medically evacuated a 52-year-old male from the motor vessel Algorail at approximately 8:20 p.m. near Detour Pass today.

A Coast Guard Station Sault Ste. Marie 30-foot small boat was launched to assist the ailing man because he was suffering from chest pains.

The man was taken to awaiting Emergency Medical Services onshore at Detour Pass (near the bottom of St. Mary’s River) and was taken to Detour Village to Sault Ste. Marie War Memorial hospital.

Source: Grand Haven Tribune

U.S. Coast Guard cutters Mackinaw and Biscayne Bay will make their official entrance into the Grand River Monday, marking the beginning of a busy week at the 2008 Coast Guard Festival.

The Parade of Ships begins at 1 p.m. The ships will then moor at designated positions along Escanaba Park, adjacent to the Grand Haven Coast Guard Station.

The 240-foot Mackinaw, arriving from Cheboygan, is an icebreaker and buoy tender that replaced the World War II-era Mackinaw two years ago. Mackinaw’s primary missions are maritime homeland security, ice breaking, maintenance of navigational aids, law enforcement, marine environmental protection and search and rescue operations.

The 140-foot Biscayne Bay, arriving from St. Ignace, is an icebreaking tug that keeps Great Lakes shipping routes open during the winter months.

A third ship originally scheduled to attend this year’s festival, the Mobile Bay, was instead assigned to go somewhere else, according to Lt. J.G. Hall, public affairs officer for Sector Field Office Grand Haven.

A Canadian Coast Guard ship is also scheduled to arrive later in the week.

Each of the ships will be available for public tours from Monday through Saturday. A schedule is provided below, although all times are subject to change: Read the rest of this entry »

by Tom Skilling | Source: Chicago Tribune

Lake Michigan’s water level has risen 8 inches above the same period a year ago. Once just 6 to 12 inches above all-time lows, lake levels are up in response to the same downpours that caused many area rivers to flood. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors the Great Lakes, predicts the higher levels are to hold through the coming months, though, barring new waves of heavy rains, the biggest rises have probably already occurred. Interconnected Lakes Michigan and Huron are unlikely to change significantly in the next month.

The corps reports other Great Lakes have experienced increased levels as well, with Lake Superior 16 inches higher than a year ago.

Full story at the Chicago Tribune >>

by Mike Miller | Source: The Capital Times

The Great Lakes Compact, years in the making, now appears to be on the fast track for Congressional approval, at least in the Senate.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, late Wednesday announced that Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., would chair a hearing on the Senate Joint Resolution approving the compact next Wednesday in the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

The announcement came at the end of a day which saw Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, chair of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, appear at a Washington news conference with House and Senate authors of legislation to approve the compact.

“I applaud the members of Congress for the leadership in protecting the Great Lakes,” Doyle said.

Read the full story at The Capital Times >>

Source: Dredging News Online

MLive.com reports that a project to dredge the navigation channel in the Saginaw River from Bay City south to Saginaw is on track to begin in late August, acording to the Saginaw County public works commissioner.

The US Army Corps of Engineers plans to bid out the work soon, and award a contract by August 20th, said Lynn Duerod, a Corps spokeswoman in Detroit.

The same report said the Corps also is lining up US$3.8 million worth of dredging money for 2009, to clear out a backlog of silt in the lower river, Bay City to the mouth, and in Saginaw Bay. The US$3.8 million was included in an Energy and Water Appropriations bill that cleared a US Senate committee on July 11th.

Read the full story at Dredging News >>

BY KEITH BENMAN | Source: NWI Times

A major shipper and holder of high quality metals wants to locate depots in Gary and East Chicago.

Metro International Trade Services LLC, of Detroit, wants to locate in those cities because of their easy access to rail and smelting operations across North America, according to Curt Felch, Metro International vice president of strategic development.

Last year, it opened a similar facility at the Port of Indiana Burns Harbor.

“We are completely full there (Burns Harbor) and it has been a big success for us,” Felch told the Gary/Chicago International Airport Authority board on Thursday.

Full story, specifics at the NWI Times >>

Source: Stanford Law School

STANFORD — The Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School today announced that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of environmental organizations seeking to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate ship discharges under the Clean Water Act.

Dealing a setback to the shipping industry, the decision follows a 2005 lower court ruling that the EPA had illegally exempted ship discharges from Clean Water Act requirements. That decision gave the agency until September 2008 to end the regulatory exemption and issue permits to ships, an order that the EPA appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

“The EPA spent nearly ten years fighting against using the nation’s only comprehensive law to combat an environmental plague that is costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars,” said Deborah Sivas, Director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School, which represented the three plaintiff groups. “We are gratified that the Appeals Court has held the EPA accountable so that this country can begin to control the dangerous tide of invasive species.”

The court’s ruling today upholds the lower court’s order directing the EPA to take specific action to ensure that shipping companies comply with the Clean Water Act and restrict the discharge of invasive species in ballast water. In mid-June, the EPA issued a draft permit to regulate all vessel discharges. The draft permit requires treatment of a wide range of pollutants contained in ballast water and many other types of ship discharges.

Nina Bell, Executive Director of the Portland, Ore.-based Northwest Environmental Advocates, said the court’s decision will properly shift some of the burden of invasive species from taxpayers to shippers. “The Ninth Circuit’s decision is very important for the taxpayers who have been paying the huge price of the EPA’s continuing refusal to implement the Clean Water Act,” said Bell. “If the EPA had used its Congressional mandate thirty years ago, this country would have been using the Clean Water Act to effectively control ship discharges for all that time,” she added.

The plaintiff groups cautioned that the shipping industry has already shifted its fight from the courts to lobbying Congress. “As soon as we won the district court case in 2005, the shipping industry immediately turned to Congress for a special exemption from the Clean Water Act, to preserve their ability to pollute at the nation’s expense,” Bell said.

Live species from other countries are carried to U.S. waters in ballast water that ships use for stabilization. The ballast water is discharged into bays, estuaries, and the Great Lakes as ships approach port and when cargo for export is loaded. Over 21 billion gallons of ballast water from international ports is discharged into U.S. waters each year. The cost of damage caused by invasive species to the U.S. economy is estimated in the billions of dollars annually. Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Duluth News Tribune

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled in favor of environmental groups pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate ship ballast discharges under the Clean Water Act.

The decision upholds 2005 and 2006 lower court rulings that the EPA must begin enforcing the Clean Water Act for all ship discharges starting Sept. 30 this year. The EPA and shipping interests had challenged the lower court rulings.

… The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is moving forward based on the court rulings to regulate ships’ ballast discharges in Minnesota waters of Lake Superior, requiring permits of all ballasted ships on Sept. 30 and gradually requiring ships to treat ballast water over the next eight years.

Full story at the Duluth News Tribune >>

See Also: Feingold Backs Federal Approval of Great Lakes Compact - Press Release/LexisNexis News

Source: Congressman Oberstar

Congressman Jim Oberstar is taking the lead on an effort to win approval for an agreement that protects the Great Lakes from water diversion projects.

Oberstar and other congressional members from the House and the Senate today announced the introduction of bipartisan legislation to ratify the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. Oberstar, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) introduced the legislation today.

Oberstar was joined at a Capitol Hill press conference today by the other five lead sponsors of the legislation, Senator Carl Levin (Mich.), Senator George Voinovich (Ohio), Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (Ohio) and Rep. Vernon Ehlers (Mich.), as well as Governor Jim Doyle (Wisc.), who chairs the Council of Great Lakes Governors (CGLG). Read the rest of this entry »

By NEIL BOWEN | Source: Sarnia Observer

Two lake freighters caught travelling above the speed limit in the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers were each fined $3,000 in Sarnia court Monday.

Lawyers representing their owners entered guilty pleas to the offences, which stemmed from Canadian Coast Guard monitoring of ship traffic.

The Federal Maas, managed by a Hong Kong company, was clipping along at 12.9 knots while upbound on the rivers on June 4, 2007.

The speed limit in some river sections is 10.4 knots. That’s about three miles per hour over the legal limit.

The bulk carrier is more than 200 metres long and and weighs 35,000 tonnes fully loaded.

The CSL Laurentien was downbound on April 28, 2007 at a speed of 11 knots, or 0.6 knots (0.7 miles per hour) above the speed limit.

Managed by VShips Canada Inc., the vessel is similar in size to the Maas.

Transport Canada sets speeds limits based on factors like traffic density and potential for wake damage. They apply to any ship 20 metres or longer.