States begin banning copper-based anti fouling paints

[fstbttms]

Democrats for sale over eviromental issues? Tisk, tisk....

Money talks, bullsh*t walks. Don't matter what side yer on. Somebody from Florida should know this better'n anyone.

 

[Peter_C]

I don't know what law or bill you're looking at. Both Washington's law and California's bill exempt vessels over 65' in length.

From what you posted in your first post. "If made into law, the legislation would ban the sale of new boats with copper paint as of January 1, 2015, and ban the paint outright starting in 2019." Kinda hard to paint anything no matter how big or small without paint.

 

[Scott L]

From what you posted in your first post. "If made into law, the legislation would ban the sale of new boats with copper paint as of January 1, 2015, and ban the paint outright starting in 2019." Kinda hard to paint anything no matter how big or small without paint.

Well, that's an easy work-around. Buy boat sans paint, then take to another yard for copper paint application which actually works. Good point, logic would dictate that a ban would not take place until a proven alternative is identified.

 

[Gilldiver]

Really? I suppose the law that banned tributyl tin in anti fouling paint was simply "another do gooder law that will drive up the costs to the public while doing absolutely nothing to improve the over all environment"?

Going after boats while ignoring the amount coming from the sewer plant is going after a fly while the elephant takes a crap on you.

The water coming into my plant in lower Connecticut will typically have 0.3ppm of copper in it during the summer for allege control. Now the town sewer plant ½ mile down stream gets the same water as we do and is designed for a daily treatment of 20 million gallons per day.

Let’s see .3ppm x 20 million gallons equals 22.6 Kg (42.8 pounds) of copper per day. Over the 3 summer months this is 2,079.2 kg (4,583.8 pounds). That is for one (1) towns addition at the mouth of the river. There are a lot of sewer plants on this river so lets multiply that by 20 or 30.

Like I said, copper on boats gets you a gold environmental star on your record and does nothing to the over all impact to the environment.

By the way, the water coming in has 3ppm but the discharge limit is 5.8ppb – that is Parts per Billion. Why is the water in the drinking fountains considered to be a hazardous waste that needs to be treated if it comes from an industrial plant but is perfectly fine if it comes from a town’s sewer plant?

 

[fstbttms]

Well, that's an easy work-around. Buy boat sans paint, then take to another yard for copper paint application which actually works.

Please describe how that would work. The ban would be enforced statewide. Paint manufacturers would simply not be allowed to sell copper paint to the yards or to anyone else in the California.

logic would dictate that a ban would not take place until a proven alternative is identified.

Do a little research. There are many non-copper alternative anti fouling solutions on the market now with more sure to come if the ban becomes law.

 

[fstbttms]

The water coming into my plant in lower Connecticut will typically have 3ppm of copper in it during the summer for allege control.

Like I said, copper on boats gets you a gold environmental star on your record and does nothing to the over all impact to the environment.

We aren't talking about Connecticut and copper from sewage treatment plants is not a contributing factor in California. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?

 

[DennisS]

Really? I suppose the law that banned tributyl tin in anti fouling paint was simply "another do gooder law that will drive up the costs to the public while doing absolutely nothing to improve the over all environment"?

I miss tributyl tin anti fouling paint. We used to paint our drifter buoys with it. One of the problems is that they would get covered with barnacles and sink eventually with the copper paint. Tributyl tin, nothing grew on them they floated forever. The lab stocked up when they heard it was going to be banned but eventually ran out.

 

[deeper thoughts]

We aren't talking about Connecticut and copper from sewage treatment plants is not a contributing factor in California. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?

It is about the environment and pretty interesting to boot

 

[fstbttms]

It is about the environment and pretty interesting to boot

Yes, but what Gilldiver fails to understand in his rants against banning copper is that his situation in Connecticut is quite different than ours here in California. As previously mentioned, sewage or water treatment plants are not a source of copper loading here. Further, we do not moor or berth our boats on rivers, which provide signifcant flushing. Our boats tend to congregate in poorly flushed basins, which concentrates the copper in small areas. Also, California has many, many more boats than Connecticut does and all of them that live in the water, do so year 'round. So these boats are leaching copper into their marinas 24/7/365. The conditions that lead to exceeding federally mandated copper levels here are likely very different than where Gilldiver's lives.

The time for bitching about whether or not copper from anti fouling paint is bad for the environment is long past. Now is the time to talk about how we get a well-crafted law banning it on the books.

 

[Gilldiver]

We aren't talking about Connecticut and copper from sewage treatment plants is not a contributing factor in California. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?

Are you sure, have you checked? Algae grows in CA as well as in CT.