U.S. - New EPA Discharge Permit Proposals October 2008

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Madzng
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U.S. - New EPA Discharge Permit Proposals October 2008

Post by Madzng »

Taken from the Steamship Mutual - US website http://www.simsl.com/USEPAPermit1008.html

Only heard about this proposal last week - as if we don't have enough to worry about!

Proposed New EPA Discharge Permits Required After 19 December 2008

On 17 June 2008 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a draft notice of their intent to regulate incidental discharges from ships (discharges which are part of normal operations) under their authority in the Clean Water Act. Such discharges were previously excluded from EPA’s regulatory authority. This exclusion was recently challenged in court which prompted a change in policy.

Background
A federal district court in California ruled that the EPA violated the law by exempting ballast water discharges and “any other discharge incident to the normal operation of a vessel” from the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting process established under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The NPDES has traditionally applied to fixed shore facilities which have routine discharges into US waterways. These discharges are permitted and controlled, and efforts are made to reduce the discharges through the use of Best Management Practices (BMP). The court’s order gave the EPA until 30 September 2008 to develop a new regulatory regime to include ships. The federal government (EPA and Department of Justice) appealed this decision and lost. The EPA recently appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and was granted an extension to 19 December 2008 for compliance with the court’s ruling.

Proposed Permit Requirements
Below are the basic requirements for ship operators:

a. The EPA will issue a Vessel General Permit (VGP). The VGP is for recreational and commercial vessels over 79 feet in length (note the requirement for a RGP has been deleted for recreational vessels and suspended for 2 years for commercial fishing vessels). The permits will apply to discharges out to three nautical miles. At the present time the permit issuance date has been extended to 19 December 2008. As with any new regulation there may be some changes to the proposed system between now and then.

b. Vessel operators are required to submit a Notice of Intent (NOI) to operate under the provisions of the General Permit, beginning six months after the permit’s issuance date, but no later than nine months after the permit’s issuance date. An NOI states that the operator will comply with the requirements found in the VGP or RGP. The NOI is simple to complete and submit. On the NOI the vessel operator identifies which discharges are pertinent for his ship. Once submitted the ship is considered acting under the general permit and is subject to verification by the USCG and local state officials.

c. Regulated discharges which must be monitored include:

deck wash down and runoff (including rainwater)
bilge water and oily waste
ballast water
anti-fouling hull coatings
Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF)
boiler blow down
cathodic protection
chain locker effluent
fire main systems
gray water,
underwater ship husbandry
exhaust gas scrubber effluent
main diesel engine cooling water

and 13 other discharges. Many of these discharges are currently regulated through MARPOL and oher international regulatory requirements. In some cases compliance with existing statutes will meet the new EPA requirements.

d. Monitoring – After 19 December 2008, each ship must conduct weekly inspections of each waste stream to ensure it is in compliance (no visible sheen, discoloration, emulsion, etc.) and make log entries to document the inspection. Each ship must conduct quarterly sampling of those wastes which are not readily visible (below the waterline discharge, etc.). Each ship must have an annual audit of all discharges covered under the permit. The annual audit must address all inspection records, maintenance records of all pollution prevention equipment.

e. Enforcement is not specified in the draft permit but it is envisioned that the U.S. Coast Guard will enforce the new requirements as part of their existing Port State Control program. Violation of the General Permit is a violation of the Clean Water Act which carries heavy fines.

There are 28 regulated discharges under the VGP. A vessel might not produce all of these discharges, but a vessel owner or operator is responsible for meeting the applicable effluent limits and complying with all the effluent limits for every listed discharge that the vessel produces. The 28 discharges are:

Ballast water
Motor gasoline & compensating discharge
Gray water
Anti-fouling leachate from anti-fouling hull coatings
Non-oily machinery wastewater
Refrigeration and air condensate discharge
Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF)
Rudder bearing lubricant discharge
Boiler/economizer blowdown
Seawater cooling overboard discharge
Cathodic protection
Controllable pitch propeller hydraulic fluid
Chain locker effluent
Distillation and reverse osmosis brine
Elevator pit effluent
Freshwater layup
Firemain systems
Gas turbine water wash
Small boat engine wet exhaust
Seawater piping biofouling prevention
Stern tube oily discharge
Sonar dome discharge
Underwater ship husbandry
Welldeck discharges
Graywater mixed with sewage
Exhaust gas scrubber wash water discharge

Recommendations:
Between now and the proposed implementation date, there are several actions which vessel operators may take to prepare for compliance:

1. Download a copy of the Notice of Intent (see link below) and determine which discharges are applicable to their vessels.

2. Review existing monitoring, sampling, and record keeping requirements used for these wastes (Oil Record Book, ISM requirements, Planned Maintenance System, etc.).

3. In the case of hull husbandry, determine the types of hull coatings used on board.

4. Advise all ships of the pending requirements and solicit input on any potential problems in monitoring these specific waste streams.

Additional Information
On the EPA website, http://www.epa.gov/npdes/vessels/ a simple two page form. The EPA held public meetings in June and is now reviewing comments received to further refine the requirements. , there are links to the actual draft permits (VGP) and accompanying fact sheets. There are also links to the Notice of Intent (NOI) which is

Based on information given in ECM Maritime Services Client Alert 23 of 23 September 2008.
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Re: U.S. - New EPA Discharge Permit Proposals October 2008

Post by D Winsor »

For further information on this and how it will affect the Great Lakes follow this link http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/green/Co ... onal_.html
Troubleshooting 101 "Don't over think it - K.I.S.S. it"
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The Dieselduck
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Re: U.S. - New EPA Discharge Permit Proposals October 2008

Post by The Dieselduck »

I wasn't aware of these changes and I appreciate you posting them Madzng, especially since I am now operating in that neck of the woods.

I have to shake my head at this, not only because my small child shut down the computer after I had written a lengthy reply to this post before it was saved, but because I find this news not surprising, but disappointing.

I have a hard time believe this will change anything, like the ISPS code, it is just a way for someone, I am not sure who, career bureaucrats maybe, to feel powerful, but does not achieve anything tangible.

Rainwater run off... give me a #^$%#&^%# break. Are the traveling public going to have to have their cars registered with the EPA and monitored as well, semi trucks, trains - that would only be fair. Seems like the marine industry is a convenient target for frustrated crusaders. I understand the frustration, but use the proper channels, such as MarPol to enact enforcement. I say enforcement, because most of the listed items are already covered in MarPol.

To me the maritime industry seems like an easy and convenient target; the large operators generally run good ships in full compliance already, of course these guys will have the proper documentation and those are the ones that will be scrutinized religiously, looking for errors in logging techniques. Meanwhile small cheapo outfits will continue to do as they please, changing names running old boats that do pollute and on and on.

Reminds me of the US Public Health and cruise ships. Everybody on board was always worried when these guys came on board (big bonuses were tied to these inspections), we would get comments like these "screw in the walk in coolers are phillips, they should be robertson" (because that is the only thing they could find) give me a f^#$*^& break, like any of these clowns enforce the same type of regulations onto themselves. Like those guys have 8 different refrigerators at home for the different foods, - eggs poultry, fish etc etc, or you can go to a restaurant in anytown USA and see the same quality of cleanliness. Yeah right.

Is one more layer of audits really going to change anything? It is just a way to shift responsibility and create yet more useless paperwork unto the shoulders of overburdened crews, already saddles with aimless paperwork and logs that don't really accomplish anything. Not too mention the cost of this exercise in futility. Maybe they should do the usual US "business model" of feeling relevant, get themselves some guns, a neat acronym like ICE or NCIS etc, and then get yourself a Jerry Bruckheimer show made about you and the latest "bad guy" on TV. Maybe in this show we could have forensic accountants pouring over log books with cool looking flashlights and bulletproof vests.

Yeah, I think that would be a winner on TV, but in reality, I don't thinks its gonna work!
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Re: U.S. - New EPA Discharge Permit Proposals October 2008

Post by Sébastien »

Don't panic guys, I just read up a little bit on this subject and it really isn't as bad as it seems. Most provisions of this new american regulation are aimed at 'minimizing the effects of'. For example, in the case of deck water run-off they do not expect you to measure anything but upper deck scrub-downs should be done with phosphate-free soap instead of toxic rust-remover, piping and framing well maintained to reduce paint and rust chips going overboard, ensure fuelling drip-trays are in good condition, etc. For bilge water they specify that steps are to be taken to minimize the generation of water entering the bilges, in other words a sea water leak on a pressure gauge is no longer a nuisance to be addressed when time permits but rather a violation of the permit issued by the EPA. Almost everything is based on 'best practice', for example hull paint must be applied within the specifications of the manufacturer without any extra metal content to increase hull leachate levels. Chain lockers are to be flushed out once in awhile, usually concurrent with ballast exchange and the chain is to be cleaned while hauling up the anchor. The only extra burden imposed on us is documenting the steps taken and the inspections performed, basically putting on paper the visual inspections we already perform.
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