U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson unveiled a plan to reduce ship emissions along the nation´s coastline.
The EPA will ask the International Maritime Organization to create an emissions control area (ECA) within a 230-mile buffer zone of the nation’s coastline.
Large ships, such as oil tankers, would be required to meet stricter
emissions standards within the ECA. These standards will cut sulfur in
fuel by 98%, particulate matter emissions by 85%, and nitrogen oxide
emissions by 80% from the current global requirements. To achieve these reductions, ships must use fuel with no more than
1,000 parts per million sulfur beginning in 2015, and new ships must
used advanced emission control technologies beginning in 2016.
According to the EPA’s data, the creation of an ECA would save up to 8,300 American and Canadian lives every year by 2020 by imposing stricter standards on oil tankers and other large ships that spew harmful emissions into the air near coastal communities. The EPA said the buffer zone will provide air quality benefits as far inland as Kansas.
“This is an important and long overdue step in our efforts to protect the air and water along our shores, and the health of the people in our coastal communities,” Jackson said.
Air pollution from ships is expected to grow rapidly as controls on other mobile sources take effect and port traffic increases. Ocean-going vessels, which are primarily foreign owned and operated, dock at more than 100 U.S. ports, more than 40 of which are in metropolitan areas that fail to meet federal air quality standards.
More information on the proposal is available at the link below.
