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News From 91.3 KUWS
Local officials and labor make case for easing proposed ballast rules
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Story posted Tuesday at 3:35 p.m. 4/14/2009 |
Officials from Douglas County and the City of Superior gathered at the Cenex Harvest States grain elevators today to speak out against Wisconsin's proposed ballast water permit. Rich Kremer reports.
Superior Mayor Dave Ross says an average shipping season generates about 2,000 jobs and brings in more than $2 million in tax revenue per year for the Twin Ports region. With tougher ballast water permit rules being proposed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Ross is worried that ships will dock in Duluth instead of Superior. Douglas County Development Association Director Andy Lisak says this permit will hurt the port.
"As written, the permit will put Superior and all Wisconsin ports at a competitive disadvantage and jeopardize jobs that are so important to our community."
Cenex Harvest States Vice President Tim Paurus says the vitality of his business rests on the fate of this permit.
"If the water ballast proposal would go through it would have a real devastating impact on CHS. It would reduce our volume by about 50%, looking at the last three years, may cause us to close down possibly if that would happen."
International Longshoremen Association President John Reed agrees. He says if ships go to Duluth, his men won't work.
"If this bill passes we will completely lose our jobs. Our season is so short, we start in April and end in December. So we have to, in order to get our pension, our medical or anything like that, we need these salties because they're labor intensive."
George Robichon is the Vice President of Fednay…the parent company of the Federal Welland. That’s where a ballast water demonstration was conducted at Cenex. He says the proposed permit doesn't make sense and state regulations should be uniform.
"If Wisconsin does what it wants to do it will require the installation of technologies that don't exist today. There are no test facilities in the world to test those kind of technologies that are 100 times more stringent than what the International Maritime Organization is requiring."
If unchanged, Wisconsin's ballast water permit would go into effect by 2012.
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