The S.S. Badger

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Chicagoans were asked in a recent poll to identify the one asset in the city of Chicago that meant the most to them. The overwhelming vote was for Lake Michigan--not surprising.

Lake Michigan is the primary source of drinking water for more than 10 million people--not just in my State of Illinois but in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. It supports a multibillion-dollar fishing industry that is important to local economies. And it is beautiful. It is a recreational asset for swimming, kayaking, boating, or just taking a walk along the beach. It is a gorgeous lake.

I always look forward to getting up to Chicago. We have a condo that overlooks Lake Michigan that I consider to be a great place to sit and just look at this beautiful lake and what happens on it, whether I am drinking a cup of coffee in the morning with my wife or a glass of wine in the evening.

But, unfortunately, the health of our great Lake Michigan is threatened every summer when a coal-burning ferry boat dumps tons of coal ash into the lake every day, all summer long.

Meet the S.S. Badger. Many people have fond memories of this boat, the S.S. Badger, steaming from its homeport of Ludington, MI, to Manitowac, WI, every summer. But they need to be reminded of one thing: The S.S. Badger is the last coal-fired ferry in the United States, and there is a reason it is the last one.

Every year, based on the estimates given to us by the company, this boat dumps 600-plus tons of coal ash into Lake Michigan--600-plus tons every year since 1953. That is their record. What does that do to Lake Michigan? In the 59 years the S.S. Badger has been in operation, it has discharged a conservative estimate of 35,400 tons of coal ash into Lake Michigan. That is enough to coat the entire floor of Lake Michigan with a layer of ash 2 1/2 inches thick.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune did a comparison of the amount of coal ash discharged from the Badger to the dry cargo residue discharged by all other vessels operating on Lake Michigan. Here is what they found:

Fifty U.S. ships and 70 Canadian ships on Lake Michigan are responsible for a combined total of 89 tons of solid waste dumped every year. That is 120 ships, 89 tons in a year. The Badger by itself is responsible for almost 6 times more waste than these 120 vessel combined, even when using the most conservative estimate of what the Badger dumps overboard during the course of a summer.

Yesterday the EPA vessel general permit that has enabled the coal-fired car ferry S.S. Badger to discharge coal ash into Lake Michigan expired. The owner of the Badger insists that the coal ash is basically just sand. We know better.

Scientists are concerned about coal ash because it contains such things as arsenic, lead, and mercury. Once in the lake, these chemicals enter the food chain through the water we drink and the fish we eat, and then they accumulate in our bodies and are associated with cancer and reproductive and neurological damage. We know how dangerous mercury contamination in fish is to human health.

Well, it is time for the S.S. Badger to stop adding to the problem and either clean up its operation or close it down. If the Badger's owners had only recently realized that dumping coal ash was a problem, it might be OK to cut them some slack. But the Badger's owners have a long history of avoiding the steps needed to clean up their act.

Most other vessels of the Great Lakes converted from coal to diesel fuel before the Badger made its first voyage. In 2008, when conversion to a new fuel was way overdue, the Bush administration granted the ferry a waiver to continue dumping coal ash through 2012. That was 5 years too many of toxic dumping by this boat, but to make matters worse, the Badger's owners still have not made any reasonable efforts to stop dumping coal ash in the lake.

Now they are attempting to persuade the EPA to give them just 5 more years to take a look at this problem. After I came out in opposition to this 5-year extension, the Badger's owner asked to meet me in my office. I, of course, agreed. He said he was applying for an EPA permit to continue dumping coal ash while he looks for ways to convert the Badger to run on liquefied natural gas. He wanted to make the Badger, he said, the greenest vessel on the Great Lakes. What a great idea, I thought. But it turns out it isn't even close to being realistic.

Today there are few suppliers of liquefied natural gas in the area. There are no shipyards in the United States that are qualified to convert passenger vessels to run on liquefied natural gas. And it would take close to $50 million just to develop the infrastructure on the land needed to transport fuel to the dock for the Badger.

One day, all the boats on Great Lakes might be powered by natural gas, but that isn't a realistic plan right now or within the next few years. It is just another delaying tactic from the owners of the S.S. Badger. These owners were given a deadline to convert the ship's fuel or dispose of the ash in a responsible way 5 years ago. The Badger has blatantly avoided complying with these EPA regulations.

There has been an effort in the House of Representatives to provide a special exemption for this filthy boat on Lake Michigan forever. They want them declared some sort of a national historic monument or something and say that it shouldn't be governed by environmental regulations.

These are Congressmen whose districts are on Lake Michigan. I have to ask them, what do you think about the lake and its future, when this boat is responsible for six times the solid waste of all the other ships that use Lake Michigan in commerce on an annual basis? Six times. That to me is a horrible thing to continue.

They have had plenty of time to clean up their act and they failed. Now we have to get serious. I am hoping the EPA decides very quickly that it is time to end the coal-fired ferry tradition of the S.S. Badger. This is a vessel that generates and dumps 5 tons of coal ash laced with mercury, lead, and arsenic into Lake Michigan every single day. This great lake cannot take any more toxic dumping, no matter how historic or quaint the source may be.

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