Evolving Public Policies Aimed at Maritime Require an Effective, Positive Response

By Captain Mike Moore, Vice President, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association

As Bob Dylan said, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

We in the maritime industry know the wind is blowing -- and blowing hard. There is pressure to make the supply chain stronger and more resilient, to make vessels more efficient, clean, and quiet, and provide affordable access to Asian markets for growers and manufacturers at a low cost.

All the while, any effort to build a new terminal or expand an old one is met with months and years of study, legal wrangling, and endless accusations that we are despoiling the environment. Simply waiting for these pressures to ease is not viable and inadequate to the times. We as an industry must continue to respond positively, proactively, forcefully, and yes, collaboratively.

The good news is: we are. The bad news is: it’s not enough.

Fortunately, the shipping industry and the ports have stepped up to engage these challenges in a proactive fashion. Perhaps the best example of positive, proactive leadership by industry was the coordinated push to implement a North American Emissions Control Area (ECA) and a worldwide use of cleaner fuels, both of which continue to significantly reduce emissions – by over 90% for some emissions.

Container liner services continue to increase vessel size to leverage more efficient economies of scale operations, add vessels to weekly service strings to allow for slower steaming, reduce fuel consumption and emissions, cut the number of port calls, participate in incentive programs offered by ports -- all while investing in new ships and technologies. In addition, dual fuel vessels are being introduced to allow use of lower emission LNG all while other propulsion power options like hydrogen or ammonia are being fully evaluated.

The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association was one of the original partners in the Puget Sound Clean Air Forum, which resulted in air emission inventories and targeted strategies that significantly reduced emissions from all maritime sectors. Currently, PMSA is working with governments, tribes, and others to voluntarily reduce ship noise when Southern Resident Killer Whales are foraging nearby. The Quiet Sound program also recently secured state funding from the Washington state legislature. This program is being modeled after a program already in place in Canada. And because we have shared waterways, we are collaborating with those efforts as well.

In addition to new and evolving strategies, the maritime industry in Puget Sound has a lot to be proud of. Puget Sound has the enviable record of zero oil spill incidents from a cargo or passenger vessel while transiting to or from a Puget Sound port due to a collision, grounding, explosion, or fire.

Continuous improvement is alive and well with adjustments to traffic lanes, moving the entrance buoy to the Strait of Juan de Fuca further out to push vessel transits further off the coast, implementing safe routing through the Aleutian Islands on the way to or from our ports with plans to expand this into a voluntary Pacific Safety Initiative for the entire West Coast. In addition, vessel designs have moved fuel tanks from the bottom and side of vessels to protected locations within the vessel, installed ballast water treatment systems, implemented better navigation systems and operators continue to implement voluntary Standards of Care embedded in Harbor Safety Plans -- the list goes on.

These successes don’t mean that we should get complacent. It does mean we should continue to educate policymakers that they should be thoughtful when proposing changes to a comprehensive system that is working. PMSA staff work with legislators, port commissioners, mayors, and city and county councilmembers to make sure that changes being proposed do not compromise safety or the environmental gains we have achieved or undermine the international, bilateral or federal regimes. And with all of this, we need to keep front and center the men and women who depend upon the family wage jobs our industry provides.

But attention in the past couple of decades has focused not only on safety but on reducing the overall environmental footprint. Instead of just preventing oil spills, think of ballast water management, air emissions reductions, and now underwater noise reductions for Southern Resident Killer Whale recovery.

Transboundary issues have also moved beyond navigation in our joint waterways. While we have longstanding treaties with Canada on free navigation and implementation of a highly effective cooperative vessel traffic system, discussions now include overall impacts of vessel and terminal operations.

Engagement by tribes, environmental groups, First Nations in Canada, elected officials, and citizens on both sides of the border has resulted in the rejection of a number of proposed maritime projects in part based on concerns over increased vessel traffic. Ironically, Puget Sound port calls have decreased by 30% since the peak in the early 90’s. Introduction of larger ships to provide economies of scale and shifts in port call rotation and selection has impacted those numbers.

But the toughest challenge we face is reducing our carbon footprint. This discussion started many years ago and is now front and center for industry. Some vessel owners have decided to switch to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) -- Puget Sound has a facility coming on-line to do just that with a weekly service operator already lined up for the switch. LNG provides across the board emissions reduction benefits including carbon reduction. Others will follow.

But of course, the recent focus is on zero carbon emissions, and some will not accept anything less even if not currently feasible. It will happen but not by precluding smart, achievable near-term steps. Doing so would preclude continuous meaningful improvements like LNG use or the use of hybrid technologies.

Most industry watchers and regulators have read about the testing of alternative fuels like hydrogen and ammonia and clearly vessel design and fueling infrastructure decisions are on the horizon but there has to be a realistic acknowledgment that this transition will take time. We don’t know yet which technologies will offer the most benefit while not compromising safe operations. And to move forward, we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It is clear to all of us which way the wind is blowing. We cannot escape the challenges before us. But through ongoing engagement, education, and proactive leadership, our industry will continue to grow and provide the services and jobs that have been the core of our communities for over 100 years.