Late last week, the U.S. Coast Guard issued regulations that longshoremen, shipping industry executives and environmentalists had long awaited, regulations likely to impact the Great Lakes’ shipping economy.
During the past two decades, people realized that ballast — the water ships take in to stay stable when light on cargo — has been a conduit for invasive aquatic species that have wreaked massive economic and ecological havoc. Meanwhile, shipping industry interests and workers have worried that government steps to deal with ballast could be an economic blow to their livelihoods.
The issue is particularly hot in the Great Lakes region, where in recent years debate has raged over the fate of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of canals opened in 1959 that allows freighters to travel from the Atlantic Ocean throughout the Great Lakes.
Mussels the size of a fingernail, “bloody red shrimp,” ugly round gobies and a virus known as “fish ebola” are among the invasives that have decimated native species, caused massive algal blooms, clogged municipal water systems (in the mussels’ case) and otherwise caused multiple problems costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Ocean-going vessels, or “salties,” bring in steel, iron ore, wind turbine parts and other commodities, and take out Midwestern grain and other exports. But overseas commerce has not been nearly as significant a part of Great Lakes shipping as industrialists had hoped; salties make up only about five percent of Great Lakes traffic.
For this reason, many say the cost and ecological risk of invasive species is not worth it, and the Seaway should be closed to salties, at least until the government implements strict ballast water treatment standards to kill invasive organisms.
The Coast Guard regulations, which are open for public comment for 90 days (they were announced August 27), are not considered strict enough by most environmental groups. New York and California already have regulations that are basically 100 and 1,000 times stricter than what the Coast Guard would impose through about 2020, as measured in live organisms per cubic meter of water.
Until recently ballast was exempt from the Clean Water Act, but now the EPA is under orders, thanks to a 2007 lawsuit, to issue its own permitting requirements for ballast under the Act. Many in the shipping industry have balked at the idea of closing the Seaway or instituting strict ballast treatment standards, saying the loss of cargo if the Seaway is closed, or the extra cost if strict ballast treatment is mandated, will stifle the industry and cost jobs.
Unions are among those opposing strict state or federal standards. A public comment submitted by the International Longshoremen’s Association local representing 80 workers at the Port of Milwaukee opposes the state’s proposed ballast water regulations. It says:
It is unproductive for Wisconsin to impose a permit for Salties that is inconsistent with a majority of other Great Lakes states, will put Wisconsin ports at a competitive disadvantage in attracting international trade and will cause economic harm to working men and women in Wisconsin. During a time of national recession, the last thing Wisconsin should do is enact regulations which will result in the loss of jobs.
This statement is, however, somewhat disingenuous, given that New York has already implemented a standard (to take effect in 2012) as strict as that which Wisconsin is proposing, and Michigan already requires ballast treatment.
Meanwhile, strict ballast treatment requirements are the only way the shipping industry can argue that it is wise or ethical to keep the Seaway open given the risk of invasive species. If the Seaway were closed, cargo would likely be transferred to trains and trucks, or alternately come in through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi River.
Industry groups say not only would jobs be lost in this scenario, truck and train accidents and carbon emissions would increase significantly. But a 2007 study by economists connected with Grand Valley State University predicted an actual net gain in jobs if the Seaway were closed.
The economists found that overseas Great Lakes shipping employed 1,001 people in the U.S. and Canada, and 891 more overseas. The North American jobs could be lost if salties were banned from the Seaway, they found, but 2,320 jobs would be created with expanded transfer and trucking or otherwise altered transport.
To further complicate matters, strict ballast treatment standards could mean more jobs as well, since the systems, using chemicals, UV light, pressure or other methods, will need to be manufactured and installed on old and new ships.
As Jeff Alexander points out in his book Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, industries and workers across the country are being harmed by invasive species, and could be more so in the future if the problem is not addressed.
Commercial and sport fisheries have been decimated by invasive fish and mussels that gobble or suck up a lake’s nutrients. Tourism has been impacted when beaches are fouled by fish kills or algae blooms related to invasive species.
Alexander even documents two workers killed in California while trying to unclog a water pumping structure colonized by invasive quagga mussels. (A pump was left on accidentally, and the two divers were sucked to their deaths.) One of them was a 44-year-old father of seven who had recently started diving to supplement his $9-an-hour maintenance job.
“They were the first human casualties of a biological plague that began in the Great Lakes and spread across the North American continent,” Alexander wrote. Though he doesn’t explicitly take a political stand, his book insinuates that the shifting around or even loss of hundreds of jobs is a small price to pay to curb the possible economic, social and ecological impact of this underwater “plague.”
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Kari Lydersen is a Chicago-based journalist, author and assistant professor at Northwestern University, where she leads the investigative specialization at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Her books include Mayor 1%: Rahm Emanuel and the Rise of Chicago’s 99%.
