Environment reporter Martin Mittelstaedt writes in the Globe and Mail today that, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tough new measures to reduce the health toll from air pollution around the Great Lakes by forcing lake freighters to stop burning dirty bunker fuel (a thick, gooey asphalt-like material laced with impurities such as sulphur) by 2015.”
“(But) the Canadian embassy in Washington has (in a letter last month) quietly asked the EPA to weaken the measures, arguing that they could harm trade. It wants ships to be allowed to continue using the high-polluting fuel and to instead install smokestack scrubbers that would clean up their emissions.”
“The Canadian recommendation, if accepted, could delay the clean-air measure for years, because the technology for the scrubbers does not yet exist.”
“The EPA said in a background paper that ship-diesel exhaust, which can travel hundreds of kilometres from shorelines, is a likely human carcinogen, and contributes to heart and lung disease, particularly for children and the elderly.”
While the newspaper article does not address water quality issues, there is presumably also an unhealthy interaction between diesel exhaust and water, not to mention the impact of leaks or spills of the bunker fuel into the Great Lakes.
The article is at http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-quietly-asks-epa-to-weaken-anti-pollution-measures/article1327805/?service=mobile.
