Looks for More Marinas for 2011 Cigarette Litter Prevention Program

ANNAPOLIS, Md., March 16, 2012 – Boaters are keeping their butts out of the water – and we’re not talking about the kind in swim trunks. In just the past three years the BoatUS Foundation has helped 117 marinas around the country tackle the problem of cigarette litter, and it is now looking for more marinas to join its 2012 Cigarette Litter Prevention Program. Marinas have until April 6 to apply athttp://www.BoatUS.com/foundationcigarettesurvey. If selected, they will receive a $500 grant to cover the cost of ash receptacles and a supply of portable ashtrays.

“Just last year, 43 participating marinas saw an amazing 50% average reduction in the amount of cigarette litter – which ultimately would have ended up in the water,” said BoatUS Foundation’s Director of Environmental Programs Susan Shingledecker.

The program is a partnership with Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide non-profit organization that encourages individuals to take greater responsibility for improving the environment in their local community. With funding from Phillip Morris USA, Keep America Beautiful provides each marina with a cash grant to purchase the cigarette ash receptacles and a supply of portable ashtrays for use on boats. Marinas are asked to install the receptacles, distribute the portable ashtrays, and educate their customers about the importance of proper disposal.

Many assume butts break down over time. However, most cigarette filters are made from a plastic-like material, cellulose acetate. When tossed overboard or washed into storm drains, creeks and waterways this material can last for decades harming fish and other wildlife.

Marina operators also like the program because it keeps their grounds clean, making the marina more attractive. Once the butt receptacles are in place, customers embrace the program. “We had some participating marinas say that amount of cigarette butts is now is almost nonexistent, which helps their business and the environment,” said Shingledecker.

About the BoatUS Foundation:

The BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water is a national leader promoting safe, clean and responsible boating. Funded primarily by the half-million members of BoatUS, it provides innovative educational outreach directly to boaters and anglers with the aim of reducing accidents and fatalities, increasing stewardship of America’s waterways and keeping boating safe for all. To make a tax-deductible donation to this 501(c)(3) nonprofit, go to www.BoatUS.com/foundation.

Intentionally approaching within 500 yards of right whales is prohibited and is a violation of U.S. law. A minimum distance of 500 yards must be maintained from a sighted whale unless hazardous to the vessel or its occupants. NOAA recommends that operators assume that any whale sighted is a right whale. NOAA also recommends speeds of 10 knots or less in areas used by right whales and outside of seasonally managed areas when consistent with safety of navigation. The compliance guide is available at: (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/shipstrike/compliance_guide.pdf).

In the northeast, please report all right whale sightings to 978-585-8473 and all collisions to 978-281- 9351, telex #48156090 or to the Coast Guard via channel 16.

USCG

National Working Waterfronts and Waterways Council will reach out to communities around the country to tell them the economic value of conserving working waterfronts. It will also create a toolkit of resources to help them do it. In essence, it will help those communities avoid wasting time, effort and funds “reinventing the wheel.” More specifically, the project’s work will include:

• Developing the toolkit to conserve waterfronts, including case studies of successful efforts, sample ordinances, and funding options.

• Reaching out to waterfront-dependent communities on the value of working waterfronts;

• Gathering data on working waterfronts’ economic value; and

• Studying best practices for outreach and education for communities.

This bill has 18 co-sponsors and was assigned to a congressional committee on October 5, 2011, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.

Ask your Congressional representative to sign on as a co-sponsor and support H.R. 3109: Keep America’s Waterfronts Working Act at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3109/show.

For more information, contact BoatUS Government Affairs at 703-461-2878, ext. 8363 or email mailto:GovtAffairs@BoatUS.com. http://www.boatus.com/gov/workingwaterfronts/ 

In 1935 poet and historian Constance Lindsay Skinner interested publishers Ferrar and Rinehart in a series of books on the “Rivers of America.” The first volume, Robert P. Tristram Coffin’s history of Maine’s Kennebec River, came out in 1937. By the time Ferrar and Rinehart’s successors, Rinehart & Winston, ended the series in 1974, sixty-four rivers had been documented.

It was apparently in part as a response to their competitors that Doubleday Doran embarked on the “Seaport Series.” Their first study of an American seaport was The Port of Gloucester by James B. Connolly published in 1940. A year later Doubleday Doran brought out the original edition of A Maritime History of New York. The Seaport Series was not as long lived as the Rivers of America, but it did outlive the Federal Writers Project, which was ended on April 27, 1943. At least twelve volumes were produced in the Seaport Series, including on the two Canadian west coast cities of Vancouver and Victoria which came in 1948.

The Federal Government also provided a brief, but productive, “Historic American Merchant Marine Survey.” From March 1936 to October 1937 teams of out-of-work draftsmen and naval architects were employed recording surviving evidence of ship design and construction, through measured drawings and photographs of the vessels themselves, laid up or abandoned around the country or in some cases still working, and by taking lines off shipbuilders’ half models.

Why was so much attention being paid to America’s maritime past in the late 1930s? In the case of federal support, the fact that the current occupant of the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a lifelong interest in maritime and naval history may have played a role. But, this revival of interest in American maritime history can be traced back to the early 1920s, and the great optimism over the future of the country’s merchant marine that grew out of the massive World War I shipbuilding program.

The “Golden Age” of American seafaring had peaked in the clipper ship era of the 1850s. The Civil War, and the decades that followed, saw only steady decline. By World War I, less than ten per cent of America’s foreign commerce was being handled by American-owned ships. When the Untied States entered the War of 1917 it embarked on the most ambitious shipbuilding program the world had ever seen. It also began recruiting men to crew these ships through-out the country, and bringing them to major ports to receive their training. Recruitment was encouraged by extolling the glories of America’s maritime past, particularly the clipper ship era, and by painting a rosy picture of the coming “new Golden Age” of the country’s merchant marine. With its ample fleet of modern vessels America fully expected to dominate ocean commerce in the post-War years.

This did not happen. The ships were completed too late to play a significant role in the War. They were employed for a few years resupplying Europe with the goods it had been cut from during the conflict, and the materials it needed to rebuild. Great Britain and Germany, that had dominated shipping before the War, rebuilt their fleets. By the early 1920s American ship owners were finding it as difficult to compete as they had a decade earlier. It was only possible to maintain American flag vessels on certain “vital trade routes” through the payment of government subsidies.

The interest in America’s maritime past that had been stimulated by wartime optimism survived. The first major historian of the era to get into print was Samuel Eliot Morison. In his Maritime History of Massachusetts 1783-1860, published in 1921, he articulated the popular view of the past Golden Age. “Never in these United States, has the brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as the clipper ship. In her, the long-suppressed artistic impulse of a practical, hard-worked race burst into flower. The Flying Cloud was our Rheims, the Sovereign of the Sea out Parthenon.”

More works followed. In 1926-1927 Octavious T. Howe and Frederick C. Matthews completed their two volume American Clipper Ships 1833-1858, published by the Marine Research Society of Salem. Three years later Carl C. Cutler produced Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of the American Clipper Ship. In 1931 the Journal of Economic and Business History published Robert G. Albion’s article “New York Port and its Disappointed Rivals, 1815-60,” which he later expanded into the book The Rise of New York Port 1815-1860, published in 1939.

The clipper ship became an American icon. During the 1920s and 1930s paintings of clipper ships by Gordon Grant, Frank Vining Smith, and others, were frequently reproduced on calenders or magazine covers. In 1927 there was even a brief effort to save the last clipper ship Glory of the Seas, before her wooden hull was burned for its metal sheathing and fastenings on a beach in the Puget Sound.

Later sailing ships that resembled clippers, though lacking their grace and speed, were subjects of other efforts. The British-built iron bark Star of India was preserved in San Diego in 1927, where she survived long enough to be fully restored in the 1960s. The Maine-built Benjamin F. Packard of 1883 was the subject of a preservation effort in New York, but ended her days as an attraction at a shorefront amusement park before being scuttled in Long Island Sound in 1940. In November 1941, just days before Pearl Harbor, the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan was rescued from a beach in Massachusetts and towed to the shore of a maritime museum in Mystic, Connecticut founded ten years earlier through the efforts of historian Carl C. Cutler.

The preservation of historic ships in this country was put on hold through the war years. It revived in the 1950s with the expansion of the fleet at Mystic, and the restoration of the sailing ship Balclutha in San Francisco, followed by the creation of a fleet of historic vessels on the waterfront of the port. In the 1960s similar fleets were created in other parts, including New York, and communities throughout the country took on one or more vessels to represent their maritime heritage.

With the general interest in history that developed in the 1960s and continues to the present day, many of the classics of American maritime history that appeared in the 1920s and 1930s have now been reprinted, while original editions have become sought after by collectors. We are indebted to Going Coastal for taking on this reprint and updating of A Maritime History of New York, the first work to provide an overview of the history of our greatest seaport from prehistoric times to the moment it was published. BY NORMAN BROUWER a nautical historian and author of The International Register of Historic Ships. 

A Maritime History of New York is available at goingcoastal.org and amazon.com. 

Kayaks share the water with commercial vessels, excursion boats, ferries and pleasure boats, all of which have right of way in some of the most heavily trafficked waterways in the country. Visibility on the water is crucial and knowledge of local tides and currents is essential. The water is cold, choppy and the currents are swift, reaching four knots.

Inwood Canoe Club (inwoodcanoeclub.com) founded in 1902 is the city’s oldest paddling club located on the Hudson River at the foot of Dyckman Street. Sebago Canoe Club (sebagocanoeclub.org), established in 1933 on the banks of Paerdegat Basin, offers access to Jamaica Bay. There are clubs offering free paddling days in each borough. Most clubs provide members with storage and have canoes available for member use. The Downtown Boathouse (downtownboathouse.org) offers free walk-up kayaking at several locations on the Hudson River. Long Island Community Boathouse (licboathouse.org) has free walk-up paddling on sunday at Hallets Cove on the East River. Hudson River Park (hudsonriverpark.org) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (brooklynbridgeparknyc.org) feature boathouses and kayak and rowing programs. The programs are administered by volunteers. Novices are provided sit-on-top kayaks, lifejackets and guidance at sites throughout the city. Once paddlers have learned the basics, they can join free guided paddles around the harbor.

In addition to the free community programs, local outfitters provide instruction and guided tours for a fee, starting at around $40 an hour. The Sunset Marina in Broad Channel offers kayak rentals. For a safe and enjoyable day on the water, it is advisable to paddle in groups with local guides or join a community boathouse. The essential kayaking trip is the circumnavigation of Manhattan Island. The 28.5-mile trip takes 7-10 hours and should be timed to take advantage of tides.

Canoes are great for exploring the shallow creeks that meander through the marshes of Marine Park in Brooklyn, Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, Alley Creek in Queens and Fresh Kill on Staten Island. Free seasonal canoeing activities are offered by NYC Park’s Urban Rangers. Periodic tours of the Bronx River are offered by the Bronx River Alliance and the Gowanus Dredgers program paddles on the Gowanus Canal.

Excerpt from GOING COASTAL NYC WATERFRONT GUIDE.

Going Coastal’s NYC WATERTRAIL MAP & GUIDE and the HARBOR ESTUARY PADDLING GUIDE are available at NYC parks locations, community boathouses and by mail upon request to info(@) goingcoastal.org. Electronic versions of the two maps are available online at goingcoastal.org.

The Port of NY-NJ supports:

Over 279,000 jobs, $6.9 billion in business activity and over $1.3 billion in tax revenues in the region.

In New Jersey: Over 206,900 jobs, nearly $9.1 billion in personal income, over $29.3 billion in business activity, and nearly $4 billion in tax revenues.

– In New York: Nearly 46,400 jobs, over $2.3 billion in personal income, nearly $7.6 billion in business activity, and over $1.4 billion in tax revenues.

– In New York City: Nearly 33,000 jobs, over $2.1 billion in personal income, $6.9 billion in business activity and over $1.3 billion in tax revenues.

In 2011, an estimated 264 cruiseship calls and 645,449 passengers embarked or transited NYC. Cruiseship Passengers and Crews Spent an Estimated $144.6 Million in New York City in 2010.

The environmental impact of shipping includes greenhouse gas emissions and oil pollution.

The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the cheapest and most polluting fuel available.

1 container ship = 50 million cars. There are 90,000 ocean going cargo ships. 15 of the world’s largest ships emit as much pollution as all cars combined.

Ballast water discharge typically contains a variety of biological materials, including non-native plants and animals, as well as harmful viruses, and bacteria.

During a typical one-week voyage, a large cruise ship (with 3,000 passengers and crew) is estimated to generate 210,000 gallons of sewage; 1 million gallons of graywater (wastewater from sinks, showers, and laundries); more than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes; 8 tons of solid waste; and 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water.

The cruise line industry dumps 255,000 gallons of greywater and 30,000 gallons of blackwater (sewage) into the sea every day.

Captain Anthony DiLernia, the Director of Kingsborough College’s Maritime Program, created the Green Boat program as a service learning project. His idea was that in addition to increasing the boating skills of students enrolled in the Maritime Tech Program at Kingsborough, he would also provide a service to the community.

DiLernia noted that one of the skills that maritime students need to master is small boat handling in tight quarters. The Green Boat program helps students master this skill while retrieving floatables (plastic bags, bottles, etc); items that are subject to wind and current.

Since time perfecting boat skills equals money, the program needed a cost efficient fuel.  The Green Boat started out as an older variety of a diesel powered recreational boat but was transformed into an eco-friendly machine.  Nicknamed the “French Fry Boat”, the boat runs on vegetable oil that was used to make fries for the campus.  The cost to convert the boat was around $4,000 and students helped to restore it.  The boat goes out on weekends and picks up about 6-7 bags of trash per day in Sheepheads Bay and Jamaica Bay. They are out patrolling the waters from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Kingsborough’s Maritime Program offers a course in diesels which is necessary especially if one intends on converting a diesel system to vegetable oil. DiLernia states that it is not very difficult to convert an older diesel engine, and if someone wants to take the effort they can do it.

High schoolers who are interested in participating in the Green Boat Program should talk to their teachers about using the experience as an environmental science internship.  Students also need to ask their teachers about obtaining school credit at their high school and take safety and survival training before going out on the water.

DiLernia wants the students in the Green Boat program to come away with five things: strong boat handling skills, an appreciation for the environment, a sense of community, a sense of volunteerism, and willingness to give. The program started last year and already students are using their skills in launches (bringing boaters from the shore to their sailboats) and ferry boat management.

CUNY Kingsborough Community College Maritime Technology Program trains men and women for careers at sea and ashore. Website: http://www.kbcc.cuny.edu. Tel: 718-368-5525 Email: maritime@kbcc.cuny.edu   

Interview conducted by Alisha Austin (A.A.) with CUNY Kingsborough Maritime Technology Program’s Captain Anthony DiLernia. (A.D.)

AA: What was the motivation for starting the Green Boat program at Kingsborough?

AD: It is known as service learning to handle the boat in close quarters while maximizing student time on the water. Don’t forget all floatables are subject to wind and current. So a student working the Green Boat in close quarters must be aware of wind and current. We know people had converted cars but no one had done it with a boat.

AA:  So yours is the first boat to run on cooking oil?

AD: As far as we know. We were invited to a conference in November last year to present our findings. It’s not very difficult to convert a vessel, but only certain vessels can be converted.

AA: What vessels are those?

AD: It has to be a diesel powered engine, an older variety. Some of the more modern hydro-pressure engines may not convert.Basically, what we did was take an old wreck boat and convert it. We said let’s see if we can convert this thing. Well, we did such a good job converting it, everyone wanted to see it. It was a mess. So then we had to totally renovate the boat. Restore it to its original condition. It turned out being a bigger project than anticipated and the bigger made it better.

AA: The Green Boat works in Jamaica Bay and Sheepshead Bay. Have you seen the Green Boat make a difference in your area?

AD: We like to think it does. In terms of bags of trash we remove on the weekend, if we didn’t take it out it would be floating up on a beach somewhere. Six or seven garbage bags a day. It’s unfortunate there are that many floatables in local waters.

AA: High schoolers can volunteer on the boat?

AD: Right now we don’t have any high school students in the program. But if a high school teacher said to a kid you could do an environmental science internship, we would accept them into the program. It has to be something they will get credit for in their home high school. They can’t just volunteer. They actually have to be sent by the high school.

AA: How long would the internship last?

AD: Could go out every weekend if they wanted to. We normally go from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekends, on Saturday and Sunday. Everyone is a volunteer on the boat except the captain. It’s service learning and the captain already has a license.

AA: Talking about boating safety, do they have to take a course before they actually go out on the Green Boat?

AD: All maritime students have training beyond boating safety. Its maritime safety for the maritime trades. They have man overboard training. Just by being in class here at Kingsborough, students will get extra training.

AA: Do you think your Green Boat program will encourage other boats to switch to greener energy?

AD: It could show anybody how converted diesel engines could run on recycled cooking oil. It cost us up to $4000 to convert our boat. The average boater is going to need a place to store fuel.

AA: What do you want someone who participates in the Green Boat program to come away with?

AD: Naturally, I want them to have perfected their boat handling skills. That’s the primary goal. That is a marketable skill that hopefully they will use to find employment after graduation. Beyond that, we want them to develop an appreciation for the environment. Finally, a sense of community and a sense of volunteerism. If they are involved in this program they’re achieving all three goals.

The no discharge designation prohibits the discharge of  treated wastewater from boats. The USCG imposes fines for illegal discharge of sewage. The new ban covers 716 square miles of open waters, harbors, bays and navigable tributaries of the Sound and a portion of the East River between the Hell Gate Bridge connecting Queens to Randalls and Wards Islands in Manhattan in the west and the northern bounds of Block Island Sound in the east.

The Connecticut portion of the Long Island Sound has been a no discharge area since 2007.  The New York portion of the Hudson River has been designated a no discharge zone and NDZ status has been approved for Jamaica Bay.

The Clean Water Act controls vessel sewage by regulating the equipment that treats or holds the sewage, and through the establishment of areas in which the discharge of sewage from vessels is not allowed (no discharge zones). Federal law prohibits the discharge of raw sewage anywhere in U.S. territorial waters, within the three mile limit.

The U.S. Coast Guard sets standards and certifies three types of marine sanitation devices (MSD), which treat or hold wastewater.

• MSD I Flow-through treatment process.
• MSD II   Biological treatment to disinfect sewage before discharge.
• MSD III  A holding tank stores sewage for discharge at a pumpout station or beyond three miles from the shore.

Vessels are prohibited from discharging any sewage, even treated by an MSD, into waters designated a No Discharge Zone. Type I and Type II MSDs must be secured to prevent discharge. The Y-valve must be locked.   Vessels containing Type III MSDs should discharge at an pumpout station. Look for the red pumpout logo. For a list of sewage pumpout facilities, visit the Clean Boating pages at www.goingcoastal.org.

Pumpouts facilities are not always available. On the day of the NDZ announcement, many of the pumpout stations in Western Long Island Sound were out of service. Let us know where you want new pumpout stations and if the pumpout you use is not working, contact us at info (at) goingcoastal.org.

Pumpouts 

Look for this symbol

To make it easy for boaters to locate free pumpout stations, Going Coastal produces free maps of pumpout facilities in New York State, including: NY-NJ Harbor Estuary, Hudson River, Long Island and the Erie Canal.  Maps are available at marinas and boat clubs. The maps can also be viewed online at goingcoastal.org and accessed by iPhone or smart phones for easy reference.

Grants to Install Pumpouts

Any New York State marina looking to install a pump out station can submit a request to the Environmental Facilities Corporation, which provides funding as part of the Clean Vessel Assistance Program (CVAP). The CVAP Construction Grant provides reimbursement funding for up to 75% of eligible project costs, up to $35,000. Stationary pumpouts  installed through CVAP funding are required to be available to all recreational boaters, at no or minimal $5 charge. For more information about the application process, technical guidance or more grant opportunities, visit  www.nysefc.org/CVAP.

Going Coastal New York City is a guidebook that helps you discover the limitless opportunities for waterside fun, dining, and adventure in New York City. Published by Fordham University Press, the book is designed for travelers and locals alike. A useful companion for boaters, anglers, kayakers, wildlife watchers, conservationists, and maritime history buffs Going Coastal NYC offers information on hundreds of shore access points and public waterfront areas, including the following:

National, state, and city parks, wildlife refuges, and natural areas

Basic site information, such as location, type of parking, and the availability of boat ramps, fishing, swimming beach, trails, and restrooms

Water-based activities: boating, swimming, scuba diving, surfing, hiking, kayaking, rowing, and fishing

Harbor forts, historic ships, maritime monuments, museums, and other heritage sites

A list of water festivals, events and celebrations

Maps covering every mile of shoreline

Biographies of New York’s “Notable Nauticals”

The guide is available at bookstores or online at Amazon and www.goingcoastal.org. See other Going Coastal books: WPA’s A Maritime History of New York. and Going Coastal Boston.