In Response to California Fuel Regulation, Cargo Ships Chart More Precarious Routes

Source: Nytimes

By LEORA BROYDO VESTEL

Reuters A cargo ship at the Port of Los Angeles. More ships are taking a riskier route to the port to minimize the impact of a new clean-fuel regulation.
In an apparent effort to skirt a new clean-fuel regulation in California, an increasing number of ships traveling to and from one of the nation’s busiest port complexes — at Los Angeles and Long Beach — are abandoning a long-established shipping lane, choosing instead to travel along a riskier route that traverses a Navy weapons testing and training area.

The fuel regulation, established by the California Air Resources Board, requires that all ocean-going vessels within 24 nautical miles of the California coastline use a cleaner-burning diesel fuel, called lower-sulfur marine distillates, rather than heavy-fuel oil.

The board estimated that complying with the regulation would typically add $30,000 to a California port visit, roughly 1 percent of the typical fuel costs for a vessel crossing the Pacific Ocean. It is believed this added cost – as well as concerns that the cleaner fuel may increase wear and tear on ship engines – is behind the change in tack.

Just after the regulations went into effect last July, ships that normally would have approached the harbor along the coast, inside the Santa Barbara Channel [pdf map], began traveling south of the Channel Islands, according to Dick McKenna, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit organization that “works to ensure the efficient flow of maritime commerce in the region.”

The alternative route allows the ships to log fewer miles within the 24-mile zone where the more expensive fuel is required, Mr. McKenna explained.


But while the Santa Barbara Channel has an internationally recognized routing scheme that provides for the separation of arriving and departing vessels to minimize collisions, the route south of the islands does not have formally established shipping lanes.

This was of minor consequence when just 7 percent of the traffic entering the harbor chose this route, Mr. McKenna said. But now, with up to 50 percent of the ships doing so, the risk of collision is far greater.

“We have been coping with this since about mid-July, when we saw the potential for accidents,” Mr. McKenna said. “We have worked very hard to establish voluntary traffic lanes that allow ships to arrive and depart in an orderly fashion.”

The Navy has also been coping with the changing traffic patterns. The new route has sharply increased the number of commercial ships traveling within the the Navy’s Point Mugu Sea Range, where hundreds of military exercises — including missile defense tests — are conducted each year, according to Tony Parisi, head of the sustainability office for the Naval Air Systems Command Ranges.

These ships “go right through the most heavily used parts of the range,” he said.

The Navy is working with the Marine Exchange to provide ships with timely information so they can avoid areas where tests or training are occurring. While only one exercise has been delayed so far by shipping traffic, the Navy worries that as the economy improves and traffic increases, holdups may become more frequent.

“If we have to cancel an event, a squadron may have to deploy into a war zone without the needed training,” Mr. Parisi said. “That’s our biggest concern.”

During deliberations over the regulation, the Navy warned the California Air Resources Board that should the rule pass, shipping companies were likely to use an “avoidance route” through its range.

Board staff concluded, however, that “a number of issues would impede the wide scale use of an avoidance route by the shippers,” including the small reduction in total fuel costs (estimated at 3 percent) and “safety concerns associated with traveling through an active test range.”

Bob Fletcher, the board’s deputy executive officer, said in a statement to Green Inc. that the agency was “working with the Navy, maritime officials and others to address the issue of increased ship traffic outside the Santa Barbara shipping channel due to our regulation.”