It never ceases to amaze me. There is always someone who thinks they can circumvent the well-intentioned, albeit slow federal response to any one of a hundred issues facing the marine industry in America today. Frustrated politicians in various coastal states continuously inject local solutions onto a particular problem that has national - and even international - implications. The end result is a balkanized process that does nothing more than hinder commerce, while usually failing to solve the problem that it was intended to fix.

Typically, the hardest thing about writing this type of opinion piece is getting your ducks in a row to justify your point of view. In this case, however, I’m left to scratch my head and wonder where to start. In the past 18 months alone, there have been so many instances of knee-jerk reactions to single events and/or unilateral, local responses to one industry challenge or another that I could write a novel and not be done. Even the brightest of these local, uninformed maneuvers borders on - let’s just say it right out loud - on blind stupidity. My personal favorite, and I could have selected any one of ten idiotic ideas, is Michigan’s effort to combat the problem of invasive species all on their own.

As the Coast Guard moves closer to a standard upon which industry can manufacture and test equipment, the impatience of industry as a whole is understandable. After all, it has been dragging on for a decade or more. So, when Michigan decided to circumvent the entire process by enacting their own legislation in January of last year, the move was viewed by some as a positive step in the effort to spur the process along just a little faster. Instead, the new local regulations (which mandated that vessels arriving at Michigan’s ports have equipment on board that prevent the escape of invasive species through ballast water) did nothing except deter ocean commerce from calling on a state where the economy was already on life support.

Michigan identified four methods of invasive species abatement, all of which would require ships to install equipment that might not be approved under international regimes when the Coast Guard and IMO finally come up with a standard. Marine operators, who are reluctant to install questionable equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, are simply avoiding the state altogether. Along the way, someone forgot to tell Michigan that invasive species can and do swim. So, a vessel that avoids Michigan and loads elsewhere in the Great Lakes will eventually deballast and have the same effect on Michigan waters. Sadly - Indiana comes to mind here - other states are considering similar, futile unilateral actions.

One of the four methods approved by Michigan is the use of equipment to deoxygenate the ballast water, which would presumably kill anything in the water before it is discharged. But Coast Guard officials, also frustrated by the slowness of the process, say that there is a good reason to put on the brakes and use caution. The required environmental impact studies (EIS) do serve a purpose. Eventually, technologies will be approved for the purpose of fighting the scourge of invasive species. When these are identified, it will also be nice to know (in advance) the cumulative effect of six 100,000 ton tankers simultaneously discharging 35,000 metric tonnes (each) of deoxygenated water into a small, (maybe no longer) vibrant harbor.

Michigan does not own the patent on stupidity. Out in California, and in the messy wake of the COSCO BUSAN allision, Senator Barbara Boxer actually suggested legislation that would direct local VTS centers to tell vessels what to do and how to navigate in certain instances. Amazingly, it took Boxer and friends just 30 days to formulate the answer to a problem that has troubled mariners and port state control for centuries. Fortunately, no one has yet taken her very seriously on the idea that a second class petty officer sitting behind a radar screen miles away should be responsible for telling a seasoned pilot which direction he/she should turn a VLCC in a crowded, restricted waterway.

Perhaps California’s biggest regulatory blunder in the past year is their disagreement with the federal government (the U.S. Maritime Administration, to be specific) over how vessel’s hulls should and should not be cleaned, especially where it comes to scores of aging hulls rafted together in MARAD’s Suisan Bay reserve fleet. MARAD would like to get these obsolete hulls out of California waters and on to other places where they can be safely recycled. But, the Golden State is at odds with a Coast Guard ruling that stipulates the cleaning of organic growth from the hulls (there’s that nasty invasive species problem again) before they can be towed away. MARAD has tried to work with California and in fact has come to agreements with two other states (Texas and Virginia) on the very same issue. Hence, California’s obstinacy has left them with the old, dangerous ships while scores of others have been removed from other reserve fleets in Virginia and Texas waters.

I could go on and on. Local laws dealing with ship’s stack emissions, oil pollution, invasive species and a host of other issues continue to muddy the waters. As the Coast Guard and other federal agencies try to formulate workable solutions to these and other challenges, they face an onerous regulatory process that local entities can seemingly ignore. Eventually, federal standards have to be reconciled with international protocol and then, the prickly problem of deciding which rules have jurisdiction where back home becomes the real problem.

In a recent interview with U.S. Coast Guard Commandant ADM Thad Allen, the Coast Guard’s chief executive told MarEx that while he lamented the sometimes slow and fractured federal regulatory process, there is sometimes a real need to proceed with caution. That doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t like to see things move along a little faster, too.

On a local level, poorly thought out, Band-Aid-type solutions to complex international issues usually do not get the job done and often, they simply make things worse. For ship owners and cargo interests faced with the costs of installing expensive equipment that may or may not be part of the final global solution, there are no easy answers. Local solutions for some issues can sometimes make sense, but decisions on maritime matters are best left to those who are tasked with handling these things at the federal level. It goes without saying that solutions formulated by sometimes obscure, poorly informed members of Congress - or state legislators, for that matter - have no place in the process. - MarEx

Joseph Keefe is the Managing Editor ofThe Maritime Executive. He can be reached at jkeefe@maritime-executive.com with questions or comments on this or any other article in this newsletter.

Even with all the other challenges on its plate for the coming year, there is perhaps no greater task ahead of the U.S. Coast Guard and the DHS than determining how best to track, control and otherwise mitigate the risks posed by the millions of small boats that regularly operate in U.S. waters. These craft come in all shapes and sizes, from smaller pleasure craft all the way to speedboats, and a thousand other private and commercial platforms. U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen calls it simply, "the small boat threat." He’s talking about those vessels 300 GT and under.

Security and terrorism experts have correctly identified the very real threat to U.S. coastlines from possible smuggling of materials and terrorists in such vessels. Almost ten years ago, former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant ADM James Loy said, “We live in a dangerous world. Domain ‘awareness’ is a critical part of mitigating these dangers.” And, while he certainly didn’t coin the phrase “domain awareness,” he was clearly ahead of his time in realizing what was to come. The challenge of controlling the threat posed by a myriad of small boat platforms will eventually be met by achieving real and defined “domain awareness.” Doing this in a way that provides real value, but also in an economical fashion, will be difficult. In the end, it may be impossible.

Recently, the Passenger Vessel Association (PVA) encouraged the exemption of passenger vessels equipped with Automatic Information Systems (AIS) or sailing in Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) monitored zones from the U.S. Coast Guard’s proposed Long-Range Identification and Tracking regulation. The logic here is that small passenger vessels shouldn’t have to purchase equipment that would duplicate existing tracking information. The fear is that this additional expense could cripple the industry. Meanwhile, recreational boaters are objecting to expanding the AIS run by the Coast Guard to include small craft because it would be costly and impractical. The system currently applies (only) to commercial boats over 65 feet in length.

The Vessel Identification System, RFID technologies and other similar systems have been identified as potential low-cost solutions that might be an acceptable alternative to vessel tracking, especially where it applies to smaller craft. Eventually, the nation’s 18 million recreational boaters may need to register their crafts in a national database and place RFID tags on their vessels. Privacy and civil liberty concerns also made the complaint list of small boaters who worry that the expanding requirements for operator identification and vessel registration are too invasive.

It does seem that everyone wants an exemption. But exemptions will ultimately be the hole through which a potential terrorist will channel his energy in an effort to create mayhem in the one place we cannot afford to have this happen -- in the harbors of our trading ports. As awful as the events of 9/11 were, that event (and in NO way do I mean to minimize what happened in September 2001) may someday seem small in comparison to the destruction of a loaded oil tanker on the Houston Ship Channel, in the wake of a “Cole-style” small boat attack.

I recently had to take a business trip and decided not to check a bag. Before departing, however, I went though my shaving kit and eliminated anything greater than “sample” size toiletries and thought that I had the situation well in hand. Apparently not. Not having properly packaged the items in a clear plastic bag, I ended up getting searched, a process that spanned 15 minutes from the time I hit the X-ray scanner until I finally limped towards the gate with my tail between my legs. Other travelers behind me were, of course, less than happy with me. The point of all of this, however, is to demonstrate the necessity for these rules. I certainly didn’t enjoy the experience, but I also knew it was probably necessary.

I also have a friend who used to fly (pilot) private, single-engine airplanes as a hobby. He no longer flies due to time and money constraints, but he did tell me the other day that the process of going over to the airport for a leisurely flight in a small plane is no longer a simple thing to do. And, you can imagine why. Those same rules are now coming to the waterfront and making their way down the food chain to the smallest and most casual of operators. No doubt the transition will be a painful one for some.

The requirement (for AIS technologies for vessels less than 65 feet in length) is probably not the answer, at least until the technology is better refined and the costs to the consumers drastically reduced. And, just imagine the screen output of an AIS tracking system with 2,500 vessels in a small harbor. Would law enforcement have the ability to track and respond to all vessels being tracked in their area of responsibility, in any event? Right now, probably not.

Research is currently being conducted into developing alternative technologies that might provide similar, but less expensive benefits than the AIS in use today. I don’t pretend to know what the answers will ultimately be, but just as security has come to the airplanes, the airports, large oceangoing vessels and a hundred other places, it is eventually going to arrive at the marina. A national boat registry will likely be one of the first steps, followed by some sort of tracking system. It won’t be easy and it probably won’t be convenient. Hopefully, it won’t impact the taxpayer’s pocketbook in a big way. But, going forward, whatever the solution, “exemptions” from compliance should be the exception, not the rule. -- MarEx

Joseph Keefe is the Managing Editor of The Maritime Executive. He can be reached at jkeefe@maritime-executive.com with questions or comments on this or any other article in this newsletter.

San Francisco, CA (28 January): A panel of outside experts formed by the commandant of the Coast Guard to study the response to the Cosco Busan oil spill today released the first of two reports it was chartered to produce. The 120-page 'Phase I' report looks at the first two weeks of response operations that unfolded in the wake of the Nov. 7 incident. A second report on the entire cleanup operation is due in several months.

The panel was not tasked with determining the cause of the incident and the report deals only with preparedness and response to the spill. The report contains 59 recommendations related to preparedness, and 79 aimed at improving response operations. These range from relatively simple ideas, such as making oiled wildlife reporting hotlines easier to access, to changes in spill response operations and research on remote sensing technology for detecting spills in low visibility conditions.

"We welcome this initial report from the review team," said Rear Adm. Craig Bone, Commander of the 11th Coast Guard District. "We've reviewed the recommendations and other information and have mapped out an action plan to implement ideas that will improve our response system. The Coast Guard is already working in conjunction with the cities and counties in the Bay area toward an all hazards, all threats approach to planning, protection, response and recovery," he said.

Known as an Incident Specific Preparedness Review (ISPR) team, the panel found that despite dense fog in the area, problems encountered by investigators trying to verify the amount of the oil that leaked from the ship, and other communications gaps, the amount of spill response equipment deployed during the first crucial hours exceeded by almost 10 times both state and federal requirements. The report also details the unprecedented outpouring of volunteers and community involvement in direct spill cleanup operations and the efforts of response officials to quickly create and implement safe volunteer programs. Contingency plans in place at the time of the spill specifically barred the use of volunteers for spill cleanup because of health and safety concerns including the handling hazardous materials.

The ISPR panel also found that there was effective early communication and coordination between the unified command and specific local agencies, such as the City of San Francisco Department of Public Health. The local government liaison office within the unified command, however, took several days establish a smooth process for overall coordination with local governments. More emphasis on the liaison function in plans and increased training for liaison staff are recommended in the report.

Today's press briefing was held in a former Navy officers' club that was converted into a spill cleanup command post in the days following the spill. Once crowded with hundreds of federal, state, and local response agencies as well as cleanup contractors and support personnel, the building is now nearly deserted as cleanup operations transition to monitoring, spot cleaning, and restoration. Better planning for large scale incident command posts is among the reports recommendations. The ISPR team noted that the rapid response of government agencies and other responders supporting the unified command response operations quickly outgrew two other locations before moving to Treasure Island.

"I appreciate the team's hard work. They have documented what happened during the response and -- without placing blame or pointing fingers -- have identified what worked well and areas that can be improved," Bone said. "Their tone of constructive review and thoughtful analysis will help everyone in the response community improve our capabilities," he said.

The ISPR team members are:

* State of California Representatives - Lisa Curtis, administrator, and Capt. Paul Hamdorf, patrol captain, California Office of Spill Prevention and response;

* Oil Spill Policy Representative - Jean R. Cameron, executive coordinator, Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force;

* Environmental Coalition Representatives - Linda Sheehan, executive director, California Coastkeeper Alliance and Deb Self, executive director, San Francisco Baykeeper;

* Industry Representative - John Berge, Vice President, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association;

* San Francisco City Representatives - Laura Phillips, executive director, Department of Emergency Management, Division of Emergency Services and Rob Dudgeon, EMT-P manager of plans and operations, Department of Emergency Management;

* Scientific Support Coordinator Representative Steve Lehmann, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service Office of Response and Restoration.

* Chairman - Rear Adm. Carlton Moore, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve (retired) and former Administrator of California OSPR;

* ISPR team executive assistant and recorder Lt. Cmdr. Ross Sargent, ISPR Executive Assistant, Assistant Chief, Operational Law Branch, U.S. Coast Guard Maintenance and Logistics Command, Pacific and Lt. Kelly Dietrich, ISPR Recorder, Coast Guard Office of Incident Management and Preparedness.

Read the panel's report here: http://www.newsletterscience.com/marex/pdf/00000223.pdf