by James C.
The SS Badger, a car carrying ferry that transports from Ludington, MI to Manitowoc, WI, the very last of its kind. It not only is the last coal firing steam ship in the Great Lakes, but also the entire country. The SS Badger has remained an at-large symbol of a by-gone era that makes retrofitting the ship for the future an emotional, as well as an economical issue for locals and their neighbors. The ecological issue being the more concerning of the topic, the SS Badger has been dumping four tons of coal ash daily for the betterment of the past 6 decades. Motions to have the ship retrofitted for more modern times have been underway since the summer of 2009, as headlines demanded the dumping of ash to cease. The EPA would be involved for the Lake Michigan Car Carrying Co. signing to the agreement of containing the emissions given off by the ship, as well as water dumping, for a 2012 deadline.
The amount of ash discharged into the lake used to be considered the norm, as within the 1973 Clean Water Act the allotted discharge was allowed. Granted this portion of the Clean Water Act was in operation when there were more than 50 coal-fired vessels in the Great Lakes. There was, in the spring of 2012, a large census of local Michiganders that would have the EPA consider exempting the Badger from being retrofitted due to the nostalgia that it generates. Yet, the Clean Air and Clean Water legislations that are in motion today hold that the amount of chemical elements dumped daily, including acidic mercury, arsenic, and lead, would become increasingly detrimental to the fishing industry, the consumption of said fish, leading to negative effects of childhood development and pregnant mothers, as well as keeping with the notion that we as a state cannot compromise our natural resources. When taking into consideration how we, as a State, have treated our timber population with the logging industry, hunting passenger pigeons to near extinctions, as well as the beaver population during the fur trade, it is entirely irresponsible to think that because our lakes are so big that they will always be there. Hugh McDiarmid, Community Director for Michigan Environmental Council, paints a vivid picture in his interview for WKAR when comparing the daily dumpage to two full sized Volkswagens. It is irresponsible for the ship not to be retrofitted, especially since there are several viable options to keep the ship in business.
Though 2012 was the deadline for the Car Carrying Co. to sign an agreement with the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice, it was not until the fall of 2013 that the three parties agreed on a plan for less coal dumping. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff made her decision based on “whether it was fair, adequate, reasonable, consistent with public interest.” This is to say that though the SS Badger agrees to contain its pollutants, both of water and air, complete retrofitting of the ship is not within the foreseeable future. Community Director McDiarmid argues that though there is a sentimental value to having the ship remain coal firing, the long term effects need to be considered with new technologies that are cleaner and more eco-efficient, such as burning Diesel, emission free wind or solar powered barges, and electric ferries, which are used in Europe with vessels of a more considerable size than the SS Badger. The three-way agreement signed, though it has made strides in preventing deliberate polluting, still came up short in protecting our natural resources. With such technologies available to keep the company in business, as well as the Badger afloat, the public interest towards the sentimental failed completely to protect one of the lakes that makes our state Great.
References
The amount of ash discharged into the lake used to be considered the norm, as within the 1973 Clean Water Act the allotted discharge was allowed. Granted this portion of the Clean Water Act was in operation when there were more than 50 coal-fired vessels in the Great Lakes. There was, in the spring of 2012, a large census of local Michiganders that would have the EPA consider exempting the Badger from being retrofitted due to the nostalgia that it generates. Yet, the Clean Air and Clean Water legislations that are in motion today hold that the amount of chemical elements dumped daily, including acidic mercury, arsenic, and lead, would become increasingly detrimental to the fishing industry, the consumption of said fish, leading to negative effects of childhood development and pregnant mothers, as well as keeping with the notion that we as a state cannot compromise our natural resources. When taking into consideration how we, as a State, have treated our timber population with the logging industry, hunting passenger pigeons to near extinctions, as well as the beaver population during the fur trade, it is entirely irresponsible to think that because our lakes are so big that they will always be there. Hugh McDiarmid, Community Director for Michigan Environmental Council, paints a vivid picture in his interview for WKAR when comparing the daily dumpage to two full sized Volkswagens. It is irresponsible for the ship not to be retrofitted, especially since there are several viable options to keep the ship in business.
Though 2012 was the deadline for the Car Carrying Co. to sign an agreement with the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice, it was not until the fall of 2013 that the three parties agreed on a plan for less coal dumping. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff made her decision based on “whether it was fair, adequate, reasonable, consistent with public interest.” This is to say that though the SS Badger agrees to contain its pollutants, both of water and air, complete retrofitting of the ship is not within the foreseeable future. Community Director McDiarmid argues that though there is a sentimental value to having the ship remain coal firing, the long term effects need to be considered with new technologies that are cleaner and more eco-efficient, such as burning Diesel, emission free wind or solar powered barges, and electric ferries, which are used in Europe with vessels of a more considerable size than the SS Badger. The three-way agreement signed, though it has made strides in preventing deliberate polluting, still came up short in protecting our natural resources. With such technologies available to keep the company in business, as well as the Badger afloat, the public interest towards the sentimental failed completely to protect one of the lakes that makes our state Great.
References
- www.wkar.org
- Weir, Karessa. Ludington Daily News. www.greatlakesecho.org/2009/06/03/ss-badger-must-stop-dumping-ash-by-2012/
- Kloosterman, Stephen. http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2013/10/ss_badgers_agreement_with_the.html