In Washington state's Puget Sound, the marine industry faces environmental challenges: cleaner air, reliable ferry service, restored fisheries and protection of endangered whales.
Plus, as waterfront development advances, new apartment dwellers don't want bright lights or truck traffic. Close on their heels are traditional customers — marine, workboat and fishing boat operators — who themselves need help adapting to changing priorities.
How to make it all work was the subject of a seminar today on sustainability in shipyard and port operations. Pacific Marine Expo In Seattle.
The Pacific Northwest is a booming market Seaspan Shipyards The British Columbia-based company has grown to more than 4,000 employees at its shipyards from 50 in 2011. The company gets a lot of work from Seattle-based fishing and commercial vessels, with contracts running through 2040, said Darryl Rhodes, Seaspan's senior manager of environmental affairs.
The company recently received permission from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority to expand its dock facilities in North Vancouver to increase capacity by 30 per cent and accommodate additional vessels.
To obtain permission, Seaspan local Regarding “noise, air emissions and lighting impacts,” Seaspan has committed to implementing several mitigation measures for both its existing operations and the expanded facility, according to a company statement about the expansion.
Part of the reason has to do with the fact that shipbuilding now has new neighbours in Vancouver.
“These apartments aren't cheap,” Rose said, and quality-of-life issues like traffic, noise and air quality inevitably pose challenges in coexisting with other occupants.
“To do that, we have to be a responsible company,” he said.
The seminar was titled “Beyond Buzzwords,” a warning from panelists Rose, Jessica Brown, program manager for environment and sustainability at the Port of Seattle, and Eleanor Kirtley, senior program manager for environment and sustainability at the Port of Seattle. Green MarineNorth American environmental certification programs.
Catchy buzzwords like “zero emissions” may generate high expectations, but they rarely translate into concrete, achievable approaches to solving the problem, they said.
One way is to use “performance-based metrics,” which use data to measure the performance of new approaches, said Brown of the Port of Seattle. Port planners use this type of analysis that considers costs, benefits, environmental impacts and equity issues for port users and the public.
Brown said it's also necessary for port operators and users to communicate about needs and possibilities. One example from Seattle was a tenant that was paying a lot of money to install sewage treatment trucks to service its vessels, Brown said. After learning about the needs and costs, port planners were able to incorporate new drainage systems into the pier improvements.
In addition to protecting water quality, the improvements have had environmental benefits, such as easing congestion along the waterfront and reducing traffic and diesel emissions.
“We're good at keeping old equipment going,” says Lanes, who says that as more companies are forced to decide whether to renovate or build new, their decisions are driven by customer preferences and government assistance.
Trends are beginning to shift. California’s air quality initiatives have driven emissions reductions across the U.S. auto industry for decades. And now, the state’s efforts to reduce air pollution around its ports are helping to incentivize lower-emissions ship designs for ferries and tugboats. Globally, the shipping industry is under broad pressure to decarbonize, even if it’s only a first step toward reducing the burning of heavy fuel oil.
While many of the shipyard's clients decide they need to adapt, “there is a cost to inaction,” Cartley said.
Rose recalled how Seaspan lost a potentially big contract a few years ago because of “the client's desired ambition” to decarbonize its shipping operations. “We lost millions of dollars, so that was definitely costly.”
