Feingold supports overseas shipping ban to protect Great Lakes
July 19, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
by Dan Egan | Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold has a message for anyone who thinks closing the St. Lawrence Seaway to oceangoing vessels is too radical to even consider.
“These shippers should know that we’ll do what it takes to protect the Great Lakes, and nothing should be completely taken off the table,” Feingold, a Democrat, said this week.
A federally funded study released Wednesday reveals the toll of the invasive species that oceangoing ships have dumped in the Great Lakes is now costing the regional economy at least $200 million a year. It is adding pressure to the politicians wrestling over how to fix the No. 1 reason for the problem — contaminated ship-steadying ballast water discharged by the relatively small number of overseas vessels that ply the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The overseas shipping industry on the Great Lakes has dwindled in the decades since the Seaway opened in 1959 to the point that last year an average of less than two overseas ships entered per day for the nine months a year it’s open.
A coalition of about 100 conservation groups representing millions of citizens first proposed the idea last year of banning those ships from the Great Lakes until the ballast problem can be solved, though the concept has been scoffed at by the shipping industry as unrealistic.
…A separate study released Wednesday by the National Research Council says closing the U.S.- and Canadian-owned Seaway to oceangoing vessels is not a viable option because, among other things, it “appears impractical from a political perspective.”
Feingold sees it differently. He and most conservationists prefer a legislative solution that will require all oceangoing ship operators to install treatment systems to kill unwanted organisms sloshing around in their ballast tanks.
Such a bill passed in the U.S. House this summer, but the issue remains stalled in the Senate.
Much more to this excellent story at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel >>
