Hotelling ships to check out of Jacksonville port

On a typical day, 15 oceangoing ships arrive at Jacksonville area terminals.At their

berths loading, unloading or waiting for cargo, these ships continue to run some

of their engines, in some cases burning the same extremely high sulfur fuel they

use on the open sea. "Hotelling" refers to a ship’s operations at anchor, and

includes providing electric power for lights and loading equipment, climate

control for cargo and crew, and heating for residual fuel that would otherwise

revert to its nearly solid tar-like form.

A hotelling ship has all the same power needs as a warehouse or office

building onshore, with the critical difference that power generation for onshore

buildings is typically subject to pollution limits, while hotelling ships and the

high-sulfur fuel they burn are subject to little or no air quality controls. The

practice of using a ship’s engines for hotelling creates an absurd and dangerous

circumstance in which a container ship at dock burns residual fuel containing

tens of thousands of parts per million sulfur, within sight and breathing distance

of diesel freight trucks burning highway diesel fuel limited to a small fraction of

this sulfur pollution.

Hotelling ships in Jacksonville emit an estimated 2335 tons

of NOx a year, and a single container ship can emit as much as one ton of NOx in

a day.b Pollution from ships at berth is released directly into nearby communities

and port facilities where thousands of people work. These emissions

contribute to the hotspots of air pollution that exist near ports, exposing

residents and workers to dangerous levels of pollutants including carcinogenic

diesel particulate matter.

The Port of Jacksonville has failed to take steps to control hotelling emissions.

In response to a lawsuit brought by a coalition of community and environmental

groups, in 2008 the Port refuses to provide facilities that will

allow container ships at the various Terminal facilities to plug

into land-based electricity to power hotelling operations.c These steps need to

be addressed in Jacksonville and in all terminals where oceangoing ships currently

run their engines at dock.

As shipping traffic increases, in Jacksonville Jaxport expanding their

facilities to handle more cargo. And as cargo ships grow larger, they will spend

more time in port loading and unloading, potentially increasing hotelling

emissions beyond their already unacceptably high levels. New port facilities

should include land-based electrical power that will allow ships to turn off their

engines while hotelling, and existing facilities should upgrade to include this

capacity. This would produce a dramatic reduction of ship pollution especially

for dockworkers and nearby residents who bear the heaviest burden from ship

emissions.

Currently Jacksonville has no way to monitor ship emissions within our ports and

city counsel has failed to require jaxport to install these monitor stations at each of

its terminals so as to protect the publics health.

Marine engines are a significant source of ozone-forming NOx. When NOx

is released on hot, stagnant days, it can combine with volatile organic chemicals

in the atmosphere to form ground-level ozone or smog. Ozone exacerbates the

severity and frequency of asthma attacks. It causes coughing, throat irritation

and congestion in healthy adults. Like most air pollutants, its adverse health

effects are more extreme in small children and the elderly. dont you think its time

to tell jaxport to reduce its pollution.