02-04-2002 Port of Houston Expansion Review Committee Minutes

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• • 1 "The threat of lncreased Or~anotin pollution in Galveston Bay" By Rev. Michael R. Bingham. Question to the Corps of Engineers "What steps will the Corps propose in reducing or mitigating -the increased levels of Organotin pollution and other Marine Vessel coatings, and materials herein identified, which will invariably be the consequence of the additional increase of foreign flagged vessels entering Galveston Bay, if the proposed Bayport facility is built?" Background All Oceangoing Ship commerce (and much of the Inter-Coastal Waterway traffic) has one thing in common, the use of "Antifouling" coatings to reduce the organic growth of marine life on their underwater bottoms and hulls. Within the last Thirty years a consensus has been reached that while the reduction of marine growth on vessels is desirable, the use of certain products have been outlawed by United States, as being overly destructive of the Marine environment. Certain pollutants such as Lead and Organic Tin Complexes have been long recognized as destructive to natural reefs and entire ecosystems. These compounds resist natural biological degradation. They unfortunately have the ability to continue to kill and to affect marine life, in the "life-chain" from shell-fish to aquatic life to fish and to bird and other animal life including humans. Problem 1. The increase of commerce as proposed will increase foreign vessel traffic. Many of these foreign vessels are immune to U.S. laws and regulations against the deposition of trace Organotin products in U.S. waters. These products and their subsequent pollution in U.S. waters have been long banned from use or application at U.S. Shipyards (many of which surround Galveston Bay). These Organic Tin compounds are leached into the surrounding environment by ablative and contaminative causes, designed deliberatively to kill or slow marine Growths on Hulls. The problem is not what they do, but what they leave behind.