Friends of the Earth is exposing and fighting pollution and exploitation of our ecosystems. Our Clean Vessels campaign is cleaning up the cruise industry, protecting marine sanctuaries, and reducing air pollution from ocean-going vessels. The environment is for everyone, and a healthy and just world requires clean air and water.
Read the latest news and updates from our Air and Water campaigns:
Last Friday, October 30th, the oil tanker Dubai Star spilled an estimated 400-800 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay almost two years to the day after the Cosco Busan spilled over 50,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the Bay. The bunker fuel spread out into a 4 mile long slick and has currently polluted at least six miles of Bay shoreline closing several beaches, killing at least 14 birds and oiling 35 others so far.
Earlier today Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Clean Cruise Ship Act of 2009 with 28 other members of Congress signed on in support. Cruise ships are currently allowed to dump raw sewage and other pollutants just three nautical miles from our coasts. The Clean Cruise Ship Act will put a stop to the lax pollution disposal practices of the cruise industry and protect our coastal waters and oceans.
For several years, Friends of the Earth and various other environmental groups, air regulators, and public health organizations have worked with the EPA to create an “Emission Control Area” that would dramatically reduce air pollution from large ships – pollution that is responsible for serious health impacts including premature death, lung cancer, heart attacks, and respiratory illness.
Our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are places of wonder and beauty, and they are also economic engines that provide valuable jobs, food, recreation, energy resources, and tourism. However, these essential resources are currently managed by more than 140 different, and often conflicting, laws which can lead to poor management and even worse problems.
In order to overcome the enormous challenges faced by our oceans and Great Lakes -- including air and water pollution, habitat loss, and climate change -- we need one unifying national policy that will protect, maintain, and restore the health of our ocean ecosystems.
Friends of the Earth submitted comments to President Barack Obama’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. We commend President Obama for addressing the critical need for a national policy unifying ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes protections and we make recommendations for improving regulation of the significant air and water pollution from the shipping industry.
Read our comments to the Ocean Policy Task Force.
Friends of the Earth has come out in opposition to the nomination of Joseph G. Pizarchik to become the the Director of the Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement, which is part of the Department of the Interior. Our opposition to his nomination is informed both by his experiences in regulating coal mining and coal combustion waste in Pennsylvania, as well as our desire to see fundamental change at an agency that continues to allow the unlawful expanded use of one of the most destructive forms of coal mining, mountaintop removal.
We received a big reminder of the threat to whales from large, ocean-going ships this past week as the Sapphire Princess, a cruise ship returning from a voyage to Alaska, impaled a fin whale likely north of Vancouver Island. Knowledge of the strike was only realized when the cruise ship arrived at the Port of Vancouver with the whale's dead body wedged against the cruise ship's bow. A test is currently being performed to determine if the whale was alive when it was struck – which is generally the case. This unfortunate incident occurred despite the cruise line’s assertions that is has "strict whale avoidance procedures in place when our ships are in the vicinity of marine life," and goes to show that more must be done to protect these wondrous creatures.
New international regulations to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from ships will be considered in London next week at the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization meeting which is being held from July 13 to July 17, 2009.
The meeting will host over 170 Member States and Associate Members, plus shipping industry groups, and environmental organizations, including Friends of the Earth. The gathering will focus on measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, an extremely contentious issue which has divided the organization’s members. In addition, the meeting will address whether a first-of-its-kind U.S./Canada clean shipping zone proposal will be considered. It will also address environmental requirements for Arctic shipping, which is expanding rapidly without adequate oversight.
Members of Congress from California sent a letter today to Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, urging the EPA to allow California to protect its waters and the public from harmful sewage discharges from large ships. Friends of the Earth thanks these Members of Congress for taking action and standing up for the people and coast of California.
Nine years and two court battles after Friends of the Earth first demanded that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) craft more protective air pollution limits for large ships, the agency announced proposed cleaner air pollution standards for ocean-going vessels last week. The rules would reduce harmful pollutants by 80 percent or more by 2030, preventing between 13,000 and 33,000 premature deaths.
