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Aug 25
2010
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Ship Sewage RulesPosted by Bruce Robinson in water , transportation , tourism , public safety , policy , ocean , news , international , Health , government , garbage , fish , environment , corporate responsibiliyt , coast , California , business , animals |
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Land-based sewage discharges into the ocean are illegal. Soon that ban will apply to big ships, too, under new EPA rules being announced today.

Jared Blumenfeld, Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was Environmental Director for the City and County of San Francisco before he was appointed his new job by the Obama administration last January. He would prefer that the ship sewage discharge ban reached at least twice as far offshore, but says three miles is all his agency can cover.
Even these new rules will only restrict about 4/5ths of the sewage discharges into the state’s bays and other coastal waters; most of the remaining 20% comes from smaller vessels not governed by the new rules. Blumenfeld would like to see an eventual system of controlled dockside flushes into regional treatment facilities, but acknowledges that’s little more than a vision right now.
While the new EPA rules are welcomed, some environmental groups are pushing for more stringent standards. There is also a separate move underway to impose a full ban on sewage discharges from all vessels on Tomales Bay.
Cracks in the dam, such as the one in the center of this photograph, are continuing to widen as the muti-layered process of getting the pre-requisites and approvals for remediation work drags on. Five years into it, Elisa Stancil, a neighbor and volunteer event coordinator at the park, says
London erected the dam and created the rain-fed lake in 1913, using it for both recreation (as seen here) and for his farm. Restoring the 98-year old dam is estimated to cost $1.3 million, but Stancil says that, too, has been delayed by the glacial permitting process.

Offshore oil drilling has never been embraced here on California’s north coast, but recent events in the Gulf Coast have bolstered that view elsewhere. 






