Port cities may get buffer zone

[kristopher]

Port cities may get buffer zone
Ship pollution plagues Wilmington, Philly

By JEFF MONTGOMERY • The News Journal • March 31, 2009

Federal officials have turned to an international group to help protect the nation's coastline and port cities -- including Wilmington and Philadelphia -- from air pollution churning out of freighters and tankers.
Advertisement

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said the United States has asked the International Maritime Organization to create a 230-mile-wide emissions control area around the nation's coast.

If approved, large ships sailing through the zone to or from American ports would have to shift to lower-sulfur fuels in 2015, and put advanced emission-control systems in place by 2016.

Nearly 29,000 commercial ships moved between the Ports of Philadelphia and the sea alone in 2006, according to Army Corps of Engineers records, including about 3,000 calling on or leaving Wilmington Harbor. Most were foreign-flagged vessels powered by huge marine diesels....

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090331/NEWS08/903310341/0/NEWS01