The next generation of commuter and passenger ferries must be at least 10 times cleaner than today's in order to achieve clean water transit. Speeding across waterways, fast ferries spew more dangerous pollutants into the air than either cars or transit buses - four to nine times more per passenger mile. Without use of cleaner fuels and technologies, by 2007, ferry air pollution will grow to 100 to 1,000 times more polluting per passenger mile. While cars and buses have become 97 percent cleaner in recent decades, ferries continue to foul the air with toxic exhaust from dirty diesel engines.
Friends of the Earth’s advocacy results in the launch of the greenest ferry in the country!
Speeding across our waterways, ferries spew more dangerous pollutants into the air than either cars or transit buses - four to nine times more per passenger mile. While cars and buses have cleaned up in recent decades, ferries continue to foul the air with toxic exhaust from dirty diesel engines. Ferries also periodically strike and kill whales and marine mammals that cross their paths.
After five years of campaigning for cleaner, safer ferries, Friends of the Earth scored a victory with the launch of the Gemini, a new green ferry operated by the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA). The Gemini has the latest air pollution control and sonar technology to reduce impacts on human health and marine life, and is the first of several new environmentally-friendly ferries due to be launched in San Francisco Bay by WETA.
The Gemini features low-wake, low-wash hulls, forward searching sonar for avoiding collisions with whales and other marine mammals, and has committed to monitor and avoid impacts with birds. Gemini also better protects public health through the installation of advanced emission control technology, which will make its exhaust 85 percent cleaner than federal engine standards and ten times cleaner than existing Bay Area ferries. Friends of the Earth also advocated for the funding to install solar panels on Gemini which offset its auxiliary power needs. The Gemini sets the standard by which all other ferries should be judged.
Update: Gemini's sister ship the Pisces was just launched in June with the same environmentally friendly features. The new WETA ferries continue to set the standard for green public transportation on the water in San Francisco Bay!
The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District’s Board of Directors approved a recommendation to use engines 20 percent cleaner than required by law, as well as experiment with biodiesel, for its new high-speed ferry. The decision, however, does not reach the high environmental bar set by a regional ferry operator three years ago.
The new ferry engines are required to comply with modest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tier 2 engine standards. New California Air Resources Board standards requiring the best available control technology for new ferries do not take effect until 2009 and do not currently apply. According to studies, ferry travel that meets the current EPA standards emits far more pollution than comparable car travel per-person-mile.
