DEL.ICIO.USShip speed limit protects Georgia coast whales
Shippers critical of rule for threatened mammal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Brunswick, Ga. — The giant, lumbering right whales that winter along Georgia’s coastline will soon be protected by a new federal speed limit on large ships, a victory for environmentalists in a long-running struggle to safeguard the marine mammals.
But the controversy over protecting the whales is far from over: Some shipping industry representatives challenge the scientific studies underpinning the rule, which will lapse in five years if it is not renewed by federal regulators.
MIKE WILLIAMS/mwilliams@ajc.com
Lisa Girardin of the Tybee Island Marine Science Center points to the center’s display on right whales. The center teaches school kids and scout groups about marine life along Georgia’s coastline, including the North Atlantic right whale, an endangered species.
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The regulation, which takes effect in December, calls for ships over 65 feet in length to slow to 10 knots in areas within 20 miles of the Eastern seaboard, where the whales congregate.
Environmental groups had asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a 30-mile slow-speed zone, but nevertheless hailed the new regulation.
“It’s a huge step for the right whale,” said Amy Knowlton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium, which has studied the whales for decades. “We’re disappointed about some aspects of the rule, but it hasn’t been so watered down that it won’t be effective.”
Don O’Hare, a spokesman for the World Shipping Council, a trade group that has been critical of the rule, said shippers will cooperate, even as they push for more studies and new technologies they hope will protect the whales without impeding shipping.
“While we have differences of opinion with NOAA on what the science says should be done to protect the right whales, the shipping industry respects their efforts and intentions with these new regulations,” O’Hare said in an e-mailed response to the new rule.
Right whales, prized for their oil-rich blubber, were hunted nearly to extinction in the 1800s. The behemoths, which grow as large as 60 feet in length, were easy targets because of their slow movements, their preference for near-shore waters and the fact that their bodies floated after they were killed.
They spend their summers off the New England coast, but females come south in winter to give birth off the coasts of Georgia and Florida.
Protected by federal regulations for decades, the whales have nevertheless struggled to survive. Between 1991 and 2002, 14 whales were confirmed victims of ship strikes, while eight more died that way between 2002 and 2007.
Scientists say even more whales may fall victim to ships, but their bodies are never recovered. They also say entanglement in fishing lines is another menace.
Researchers estimate there are about 300 to 400 right whales remaining.
Shippers say the new speed limits may cost them time and money, yet may prove ineffective. Federal estimates say the limits should cost less than 1 percent of the $300 billion trade value of U.S. East Coast shipping.
Edwin Fendig III, a harbor pilot in Brunswick, said ship captains do all they can to avoid the whales and want to see them survive, but worry that the speed limits raise the dangers of accidents.
“It’s very unsafe for us to drive a ship at 10 knots,” he said, noting that the Brunswick shipping channel is only 500 feet wide and holding a giant vessel on course in those confines in stormy weather requires more momentum. “We’re extremely environmentally sensitive to the whales, but if cargo isn’t brought into port in a safe and timely fashion, what will that cost the U.S?”
The federal rule allows an exception for captains to exceed the 10-knot limit if they deem it necessary for the safety of the vessel.
Robert Morris, a spokesman for the Georgia Port Authority, said his agency has helped fund new, high-tech buoys that may help solve the problem. Outfitted with hydrophones, the buoys pick up sounds of the whales and transmit the information via satellite to researchers, who relay it to the Coast Guard, which already has a system in place for notifying ships of whales spotted by aerial surveys.
“It’s important to do something to protect the whales, but it’s our belief this technology will make the issue a moot point,” Morris said.
The buoys, developed in a partnership between researchers at Cornell University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, were deployed near Brunswick in a pilot program last winter, and will be deployed near Jacksonville’s port entrance this winter.
Environmentalists, however, point out that the buoys are only effective if the whales are making sounds.
“It doesn’t substitute for aerial surveys,” said Vicki Cornish of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group that pushed for the speed limits. “And funding for the aerial surveys has been cut. We really think it’s important these ships slow down. It’s only for 20 miles.”
Federal regulators estimate the new speed limits will mean ships will take about an extra hour to reach most ports.
On Georgia’s Tybee Island, the non-profit Marine Science Center has a small display about the whales. Visiting school groups are taught that they spend winters in Georgia waters.
“Many people have no idea these large whales are in our waters,” said Lisa Girardin, the center’s education coordinator.
Don Mattingly, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot from Marietta who helped locate the whales in aerial surveys off Georgia’s coast in the 1980s, said he hopes the rule is renewed in five years.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “But it’s not all that’s needed. The bottom line is that if we want these whales to survive, we’ve got to stop killing them.”
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