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Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
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Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
To All,
I thought this was dead but actually passed. This is a permit meant for ballast water for tankers and the wording was never changed to exclude recreational boaters. This is a quick form that take a couple of minutes to email. This will be enacted this September-2008. By using this link below, it automatically goes to your elected officials and President Bush. You will not be able to operate your boat without this permit. This needs to be overturned ASAP. Click below and fill out.
Re: Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
Thanks everyone and keep sending. This is from Boat US:
Yesterday the EPA issued its rules for recreational boaters' permits which will take effect at 11:59 September 30, 2008 – unless the 2008 Clean Boating Act is passed beforehand. There are only about 30 days left for Congress to pass the bill before the deadline due to the July 4th holiday week, the annual August recess and political conventions. If it is not passed before the August 11th recess, we're told by Washington insiders, it might never be passed at all. In that case, get ready for Big Brother to start telling you how to manage your boat. We guarantee you'll find some regulations laughable – until you realize that your marina mate can turn you in to the EPA for breaking the rules.
EPA Issues Permit Rules - 06/18/2008
Mandated by Congress 35 years ago to regulate ship ballast discharge, the EPA now plans to micro-manage how Americans use their boats – right down to “pack food in reusable containers to minimize waste.” Welcome to the “Brave New World” of Boating.
We urge to write your Senators and Congressmen today to support EPA Permit relief legislation. To contact them an easy way, click here…
Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the Clean Water Act proposal in the Federal Register that will impose new requirements on recreational boaters.
Mandated by a court order in 2006 that focused exclusively on commercial vessel ballast water, the “proposed” rules include unprecedented, new regulations on American recreational boaters, demonstrating the urgent need to pass the Clean Boating Act of 2008 (S. 2766 and H. R. 5949) as these new regulations will take effect on September 30 at 11:59pm.
No Fee or Paperwork
In the beginning there will be no fees for permits, indeed there will be no “permits” as such at all, according to the 15-page “General Permit” rules. Instead, boaters will be granted blanket approval – so long as they obey the EPA rules. To our knowledge, this is the first time the EPA has granted a “General Permit” without requiring the subject of the regulation to file in order to qualify. Failure to obey the rules can lead to “permit” suspension and fines, mandated by Congress to be no higher than $32,500 per day. The fines, indeed the whole act itself, was never intended to be directed solely to boaters, rather to big business and cities who thought they were above the law.
The original Clean Water Act passed by Congress 35 years ago was designed to regulate serious polluters of American waterways including municipal sewage plants, chemical factories and waste dumps like the notorious Love Canal.
Fees Coming Later?
An EPA “Fact Sheet” says that the cost of administering the regulations will be $88 million annually, which can be recovered with a “compliance cost per permittee from $8.79 to $25.99 per year for motorboats.” The EPA says this fee will have “a minimal impact on all entities.”
EPA’s “Stealth” Strategy is Clever
Observers familiar with environment legislation are calling this “paperless permit” approach of the EPA a “clever” way to get laws codified without incurring the wrath of America’s 18 million boat owners. Once the EPA has weathered the storm of protest and criticism at the outset, these people say, the EPA will likely then promulgate more stringent regulations as time goes on, with or without fees and paper. In fact laws already on the books state that no subsequent regulations can be less stringent than the current ones. American boaters are now squarely in the same regulatory scheme as municipalities and corporations.
These same sources (including one environmental lawyer) tell us that soon any state that wishes can ask to set its own rules for boating permits, and then fees and paperwork are sure to follow. Boaters are sitting ducks for what will amount to an extra boating tax, in addition to state registration fees.
Statement from the NMMA
The National Marine Manufacturers’ Association (NMMA) issued a press release yesterday afternoon saying, “The EPA’s Clean Water Act proposal unnecessarily creates a cumbersome, complex and confusing permitting scheme for recreational boaters, throwing them into a regulatory regime designed for land-based industrial facilities like sewer treatment plants. As a result, America’s 18 million recreational boat owners will be required to observe a multitude of new rules and practices, yet they won’t be provided clear information as to how to comply with these new federal requirements by EPA, exposing them to a high degree of regulatory uncertainty, compliance issues and legal jeopardy involving citizen lawsuits and $32,500 per violation per day penalties.”
States Can and Likely Will Get Involved
“The EPA proposal also allows individual states to implement their own boating permits, creating the potential for mass confusion with a patchwork of differing state-by-state laws for boaters,” says the NMMA.
NMMA President Dammrich
“Now more than ever, it is critical that we unite—as an industry and as boating enthusiasts—and compel Congress to pass the Clean Boating Act of 2008,” said Thom Dammrich, NMMA. “Boaters everywhere must reach out to their state and local representatives and ask that they support this key piece of legislation.”
BoatTEST.com’s Take on the EPA Rules
We find the EPA “General Permit” requirements an unholy stew of marina and boat maintenance “best practices,” common sense codified, incredible government intrusion, nonsense, and chilling possibilities. We think that these rules, while seemly simple “best practices” can be a Trojan Horse of increasingly annoying and needless regulations. Needless, because the amount of pollution of any type caused by recreational boats is a drop in the bucket compared to one bad rainstorm and an overflowing sewage treatment plant in Greenwich, CT, or the spraying of toxic chemicals along the coast to kill mosquitoes. Allowing the states to control environmental permitting for boats is a made-to-order new tax revenue scheme that many states hungry for cash will undoubtedly jump on, in our opinion.
Noteworthy for one reason or another are these passages extracted from the “Rules”--
• 1.6 Compliance
o “Noncompliance with the requirements of this permit constitutes a violation…each day a violation continues…” you can be fined up to $32,500.
• 2.1.3 Trash Management
o “All vessels must have appropriate receptacles for disposing trash…with secure lids.”
o “Prevent any trash or garbage, including food waste, cigarette butts…from entering any waste system.”
o “Secure loose items on deck…”
o “Do not dispose of fishing waste overboard while in a harbor or marina.”
• 2.1.7 Graywater
o “Minimize graywater discharges…”
o “Oils used in cooking may not be added to the graywater system or into any other discharge…”
3. Encouraged Best Management Practices
* “When possible use restrooms, showers…on shore.”
* "If possible, store graywater for…disposal on shore”
* "Use all soaps and cleaners sparingly.”
* "Purchase food in bio-degradable…packaging.”
* "Pack food in reusable containers…”
* "Use onshore fish cleaning station…”
* "Consider hiring a qualified, professional hull cleaner…”
* "Regularly scrub your deck with tap water and a soft brush…”
4.3 Duty to Provide Information
“The Director may request any information required to determine whether cause exists for…terminating this permit…” “You must provide any requested information…”
4.4 Inspection and Entry
“The vessel owner or operator shall allow EPA or any authorized representative to:
1. Inspect any vessel…and,
2. Sample or monitor…any substances or parameters at any location.”
BoatTEST.com pleads guilty to being old fashioned and persisting in our belief that the 4th Amendment (no unreasonable search or seizure) to the Constitution is still in force, the U.S. Coast Guard’s right to board notwithstanding. Congress did not intend for the Clean Water Act to be used against American recreational boaters, in our opinion. For that reason we feel it is imperative for Congress to set this matter to rights with S. 2766 and H.R. 5949.
Re: Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
Gee, I remember when a bunch of THT'rs shook thier heads and firmly placed them in the sand "Don't worry it's not going to happen, nothing to worry about" Remeber Menzies?
Well here we are.. moving closer and closer to the end game... Another sorry i will watch my languageing permit....
Re: Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
I dont think the epa has ANY interest in administering or enforcing any of this. They are being ordered to do so by that wacky federal court. Its not going to fly.
Re: Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
Maybe people should bother to read the proposed rule itself instead of letting organizations with agendas tell them what it says. One of the earlier posts has a link directly to it.
Anyway, I oppose the idea, so does the EPA.
What they have proposed is about the least they can legally do and most people are already in compliance with it. The anticipated costs are NOT costs for the EPA to administer it (FEES), but their best estimate of what each boater will have to spend to be in compliance each year, which is basically keeping your bilge clean and not washing the boat in the water with harmful chemicals.
As for the rest of the quoted nonsense, a lot has been cherry picked from the requirements for vessels over 67' in length (not your standard recreational boater) or laws that are already on the books (no throwing trash overboard) administered by the Coast Guard or other agencies.
So, definitely write your representatives if you oppose the proposed rules, but at least have your facts straight and stop blaming the EPA for this very minor rule that the COURTs made them create. Maybe if you reside in the area where this dumb ass judge is located you can try to get him to lose his job (oh I forget, it is California).
I am not a fan of the EPA because of the selective nature of their enforcement of other CWA rules. Instead of focusing on boaters or other recreational users, they should be fining farmers, developers, and cities for their massive pollution of the water with fertilizer and sewage runoff.
__________________ 2009 NauticStar 2200 Bay Tournament Edition with 175 hp Suzuki 4-stroke
Re: Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters
I am in no way in favor of more restictions or bigger gvmnt but when I go to the islands around my house on the weekdays and see the piles of garbage left by people that just move it aside and leave more it makes me think.
Ballast Tanker Permit required for recreational boaters 
