July 17, 2009 – Today, the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) gave preliminary approval to a joint application from the U.S. and Canada for the designation of an Emission Control Area (ECA) that would extend 200 nautical miles off of their respective coastlines.
This ECA would provide the strongest clean air standards available under international law, slashing ozone-forming and particulate pollution from oceangoing vessels and saving up to 14,000 lives a year by 2020. Final adoption of the proposal could come in March 2010 at the next meeting of this Committee of the IMO, a London-based subsidiary body of the United Nations.
Container ships, tankers and other large sea-going vessels that dock at more than 100 U.S. port cities burn low grade "residual fuel" or "bunker fuel" that is a major source of air pollution. The emissions reductions in an ECA result from the required use of lower sulfur fuels (10,000 ppm in 2010 and 1,000 ppm in 2015) and control equipment for nitrogen oxides on new engines built after 2016. EPA analysis indicates that in 2020 alone, the ECA would save as many as 14,000 lives, prevent 4,800 hospital admissions, and prevent 4.9 million acute respiratory symptoms.
Today's approval of this application is the result of the hard work of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which prepared a well-documented, winning application and effectively responded to technical concerns raised by other countries at the IMO. Below are supporting statements from two major U.S. environmental groups attending the IMO meeting:
John Kaltenstein, Clean Vessels Program Manager with Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, California: "Regulating international shipping off U.S. and Canadian coasts has been strenuously demanded by impacted residents and environmental groups for years. The IMO has shown that it can step up to the plate. Friends of the Earth will work to ensure that the proposal is adopted and that the public health and environmental benefits are soon realized."
Ramon Alvarez , Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense Fund's Austin, Texas office: "When finalized, this proposal will provide welcome relief to the children and families hard hit by pollution delivered by the thousands of ships that annually visit Houston, Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York/New Jersey and other ports every year.
Additional information on emissions from oceangoing vessels and the ECA proposal is available at: www.epa.gov/oms/oceanvessels.htm#emissioncontrol
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