Deloach Marine Services, LLC

Deloach Marine Services, LLC P.O.Box 576, Port Allen, LA, 70767 Telephone 225-336-9933, FAX 225-336-9936 November 30, 2009 FILED VIA REGULATIONS.GOV Docket Management Facility U.S. Department of Transportation West Building Ground Floor Room W12-140 1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20590 Re: Standards for Living Organisms in Ships’ Ballast Water Discharged in U.S. Waters (Docket ID No. USCG–2001–10486) To Whom It May Concern: I am writing on behalf of Deloach Marine Service, LLC, concerning the U.S. Coast Guard’s (“USCG”) August 28, 2009 Ballast Water Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”). Deloach is an inland marine transportation company operating on our nations inland waterway system, primarily along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and Lower Mississippi River. Our headquarters and our base of operations is in Port Allen, Louisiana. We operate a fleet of 12 towboats and employ approximately 120 persons. Deloach is an active member of the American Waterways Operators (“AWO”), the national trade association for the U.S. tugboat, towboat and barge industry. We fully support AWO’s efforts on this issue, and would encourage the USCG to pay close attention to the comments submitted by AWO in this rulemaking process, particularly as those comments relate to: (1) the need for a uniform national standard for ballast water and other vessel discharges; (2) the lack of a sufficient scientific and technical support in the record for the proposed regulations; (3) the need to expressly provide in the final regulations that ballast water treatment is not required for towing vessels and barges operating in the U.S. domestic trade; (4) the need to exempt all other vessel operations that do not pose a risk of introducing invasive species; (5) the need to eliminate the two-tier approach or provide lifetime grandfathering for vessels with installed treatment systems; and (6) the need to ensure that the proposed practicability review is sufficiently robust and comprehensive. For our part, Deloach request that the final rule should expressly state that inland river towboats and barges are not subject to the new ballast water discharge standards. The Preliminary Regulatory Analysis document accompanying the NPRM contains analysis that would seem to clearly indicate that the USCG does not believe that the proposed regulations would apply to inland towing vessels and barges. On page 12 of this analysis the USCG states: “Approximately 7,575 vessels from the current vessel population, of which 2,616 are U.S. vessels, would be required to meet the BWDS” As there are over 7,000 inland towboats and over 25,000 barges operating on our inland waterway system, this statistic would clearly indicate that the USCG does not believe that inland river towboats and barges should, or even would be subject to the new standards. They did not even include them in the analysis. Specifically, on page 37 of that document, the USCG explains: We have not included the following vessels in the affected population that would incur additional costs from the proposed BWDS based on consultation with the ballast water program personnel and USCG expertise: … Vessels less than or equal to 100 ft. Vessels in this size range typically operate in more sheltered environments and do not load and discharge ballast. Their stability characteristics generally accommodate the amount and type of cargo they carry, precluding the need to use ballast water as a stability enhancer. Some towing vessels (tugs towing behind and general). These vessels do not carry cargo and, thus, do not experience drastic changes in draft that would affect their stability characteristics. Therefore, they do not typically load and discharge ballast water. River vessels. Rivers are usually very sheltered environments having limited wind and wave spectra. While current conditions play a very large role in sailing and towing characteristics, ballasting is not generally used to improve these. The operations of the river barge trade make installed ballast water systems very rare and loading and discharging ballast water through void tank main deck openings, without installed piping and pumps, would be a costly and extremely time-consuming evolution. This USCG preliminary analysis obviously recognizes and agrees with our industry’s ballasting practices. In particular, all barges, and most towboats, simply do not discharge ballast water. Further, any inland river towboats owned or operated by Deloach which carry ballast water use only potable water when ballasting or they are otherwise expressly prohibited by company policy from exchanging ballast water in different Captain of the Port Zones. Unfortunately, the text of the NPRM is not as clear on these points as the supporting documentation, so additional clarification in the final rule would be beneficial. To the extent that the USCG decides to apply the new standards to inland towboats or barges, the final rule should provide the inland towing industry with sufficient flexibility to comply with the new standards by means other than installing expensive treatment systems. Those alternative options should include the use of potable water as ballast or company policies expressly prohibiting the exchange of ballast water in different Captain of the Port Zones. Thank you for kindly considering these comments. Sincerely, Z.David DeLoach Owner-Deloach Marine Svc.LLC