Navy environmental rules relaxed for

Arctic operations because

 of global warming

3 hours ago

OTTAWA (CP) — The Canadian navy is relaxing some pollution rules for warships plying Arctic waters after skippers warned their ships were at risk of becoming smelly garbage scows.

Instead of having to carry all waste food on deck for eventual disposal at port, the ships will be allowed to dump it at sea.

The changes “help alleviate our COs (commanding officers&rsquo concerns (with regard to) accumulated food remnants stored in garbage bags on decks during ever-increasing global warming summers,” says an internal memo, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

“These food remnants may decay or putrefy and generate an occupational health and safety issue on board ships (that) our COs can ill afford while striving to enforce Canadian sovereignty in our internal Arctic waters.”

The revamped orders, expected this fall, would also allow Canadian ships to dump raw sewage offshore in the Arctic and even to toss garbage bags overboard if there are “operational” reasons for doing so.

“If the above instructions and limits cannot be met for operational or safety reasons when at sea and the ship’s holding capacity is about to be exceeded, then garbage shall be made negatively buoyant prior to discharge and released at the farthest practical point from land,” says a proposed revision.

Military-source pollution in the sensitive Arctic environment is becoming a navy headache as the federal government sends more warships north on sovereignty patrols in a region already under assault from global warming.

“Any new flora, fauna or pollution in our Arctic internal waters carries a risk to adversely impact its embattled ecosystem, as the intensity of past climate limitations gradually decline due to escalating global warming,” says a draft version of the new orders.

Reliably cold temperatures once helped naval commanders deal with the garbage problem through freezing, but warmer weather is changing protocols.

Now, the new orders will allow “moderate amounts” of pulped-food waste - once banned from disposal in the Arctic - to be dumped if a ship is at least 12 nautical miles or about 22 kilometres from shore.

The orders will also allow raw, untreated sewage to be flushed into the sea at the same minimum distance and, to help dispersal, only while the ship is moving at a moderate clip.

Previously, the navy banned the disposal of raw sewage in Arctic waters but the new orders will reflect the more relaxed provisions of the Arctic Water Pollution Prevention Act.

Submarines, which have highly limited storage capacity for waste, are being given even more leeway, including a provision allowing oily bilge water to be flushed directly into the ocean. However, all of Canada’s four new Victoria-class subs are being equipped with technology that will remove oil from bilge water, making the problem moot.

All Canada’s warships are technically exempt from the Canada Shipping Act as well as from other laws with environmental restrictions, although navy ships are legally bound to comply with ecosystem protections under the Fisheries Act.

However, senior brass have ordered that the fleet will nevertheless act as though all federal environmental legislation applied to navy operations, with exceptions for emergencies and operational restrictions.

The problem in the Arctic is that the only major port facility for offloading garbage and sewage is Iqaluit, and waste matter can overwhelm the storage capacity of ships during extended missions.

At the same time, Ottawa is ordering more ships north to bolster Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims. In August, for example, the 10-day Operation Nanook involved three navy vessels - including a submarine, HMCS Corner Brook, the first time a Canadian sub has participated in such an operation.

Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Agnew said the recent revisions to pollution-prevention orders simply reflect changes in civilian law, and allow ships’ commanders more flexibility.

“Notwithstanding that we’re less restrictive than we used to be, we are far more restrictive than the law requires us to be,” he said in an interview. “It’s good stewardship.”

Another spokesman noted the navy is in the Arctic partly to be able to react quickly to environmental disasters.

“One of the components of Operation Nanook was responding to an environmental crisis, and it’s only by being up there that we’re going to be able to respond to environmental crises caused by increased traffic in the region,” said Lt. Jordan Holder.

A spokesman for the Sierra Club of Canada said the melting Arctic - already under pressure - can ill afford any more pollution.

“Having to take waste to a port to be properly disposed of is worth the inconvenience . . . rather than dumping it into our newly exposed ocean,” said Jamie Kirkpatrick from Toronto.

“We’re no longer in an era where you can say the solution to pollution is dilution.”

Consequence: warmer temperatures
Average temperatures will rise, as will the frequency of heat waves.

Warning signs today


• Most of the United States has already warmed, in some areas by as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, no state in the lower 48 states experienced below average temperatures in 2002. The last three five-year periods are the three warmest on record.
  
  
• Many places in North America had their hottest seasons or days on record in the late 1990s.
  
  
• Since 1980, the earth has experienced 19 of its 20 hottest years on record, with 2005 and 1998 tied for the hottest and 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third.
  
  

Consequence: drought and wildfire
Warmer temperatures could also increase the probability of drought. Greater evaporation, particularly during summer and fall, could exacerbate drought conditions and increase the risk of wildfires.

Warning signs today



Greater evaporation as a result of global warming could increase the risk of wildfires.

• The 1999-2002 national drought was one of the three most extensive droughts in the last 40 years.
  
  
• In 2002, the Western United States experienced its second worst wildfire season in the last 50 years; more than 7 million acres burned. Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon had their worst seasons.
  
  
• The period from April through June of 1998 was the driest three-month period in 104 years in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana.
  
  
• Dry conditions produced the worst wildfires in 50 years in Florida in 1998.
  
  
• April through July of 1999 was the driest four-month stretch in 105 years of record-keeping in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Rhode Island.
  
  
• Montana, Colorado, and Kansas experienced severe dust storms in 2002, a product of dry conditions.
  
  
• September 2001 to February 2002 was the second driest six-month period on record for the Northeast.
  
  

Consequence: more intense rainstorms
Warmer temperatures increase the energy of the climatic system and lead to more intense rainfall at some times and in some areas.

Warning signs today


• National annual precipitation has increased between 5 and 10 percent since the early 20th century, largely the result of heavy downpours in some areas.
  
  
• Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts each got more than double their normal monthly rainfall in June 1998.
  
  
• Severe flooding in the Texas, Montana, and North Dakota during the summer of 2002 caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
  
  

More frequent and more intensive heat waves could result in more heat-related deaths. Photo: Gary Braasch, Chicago, July 1995. See the World View of Global Warming website for more Gary Braasch photos illustrating the consequences of the changing climate.

Consequence: deadly heat waves and the spread of disease
More frequent and more intensive heat waves could result in more heat-related deaths. These conditions could also aggravate local air quality problems, already afflicting more than 80 million Americans. Global warming is expected to increase the potential geographic range and virulence of tropical diseases as well.

Warning signs today


• In 2003, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1500 deaths in India.
  
  
• More than 250 people died as a result of an intense heat wave that gripped most of the eastern two-thirds of the United States in 1999.
  
  
• Disease-carrying mosquitoes are spreading as climate shifts allow them to survive in formerly inhospitable areas. Mosquitoes that can carry dengue fever viruses were previously limited to elevations of 3,300 feet but recently appeared at 7,200 feet in the Andes Mountains of Colombia. Malaria has been detected in new higher-elevation areas in Indonesia.
  
  

Consequence: more powerful and dangerous hurricanes
Warmer water in the oceans pumps more energy into tropical storms, making them more intense and potentially more destructive.

Warning signs today


• The number of category 4 and 5 storms has greatly increased over the past 35 years, along with ocean temperature.
  
  

Consequence: melting glaciers, early ice thaw
Rising global temperatures will speed the melting of glaciers and ice caps, and cause early ice thaw on rivers and lakes.

Warning signs today


• At the current rate of retreat, all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2070.
  
  
• After existing for many millennia, the northern section of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica -- a section larger than the state of Rhode Island -- collapsed between January and March 2002, disintegrating at a rate that astonished scientists. Since 1995 the ice shelf's area has shrunk by 40 percent.
  
  
• According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the alarming rate of nine percent per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s.
  
  
• In 82 years of record-keeping, four of the five earliest thaws on Alaska's Tanana River were in the 1990s.
  
  

The satellite photo at far left shows the Larson B ice shelf on Jan. 31, 2002. Ice appears as solid white. Moving to the right, in photos taken Feb. 17 and Feb. 23, the ice begins to disintegrate. In the photos at far right, taken Mar. 5 and Mar 7, note water (blue) where solid ice had been, and that a portion of the shelf is drifting away. Photos: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Consequence: sea-level rise
Current rates of sea-level rise are expected to increase as a result both of thermal expansion of the oceans and of partial melting of mountain glaciers and the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps. Consequences include loss of coastal wetlands and barrier islands, and a greater risk of flooding in coastal communities. Low-lying areas, such as the coastal region along the Gulf of Mexico and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, are especially vulnerable.

Warning signs today


• The current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historical rate and appears to be accelerating.
  
  
• Global sea level has already risen by four to eight inches in the past century. Scientists' best estimate is that sea level will rise by an additional 19 inches by 2100, and perhaps by as much as 37 inches.
  
  

Warmer temperatures may cause some ecosystems, including alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains, to disappear.

Consequence: ecosystem shifts and species die-off
The increase in global temperatures is expected to disrupt ecosystems and result in loss of species diversity, as species that cannot adapt die off. The first comprehensive assessment of the extinction risk from global warming found that more than one million species could be committed to extinction by 2050 if global warming pollution is not curtailed. Some ecosystems, including alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains, as well as tropical montane and mangrove forests, are likely to disappear because new warmer local climates or coastal sea level rise will not support them.

Warning signs today


• A recent study published in the prestigious journal Nature found that at least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming. Species' geographic ranges have shifted toward the poles at an average rate of 4 miles per decade and their spring events have shifted earlier by an average of 2 days per decade.
  
  
• In Washington's Olympic Mountains, sub-alpine forest has invaded higher elevation alpine meadows. In Bermuda and other places, mangrove forests are being lost.
  
  
• In areas of California, shoreline sea life is shifting northward, probably in response to warmer ocean and air temperatures.
  
  
• Over the past 25 years, some penguin populations have shrunk by 33 percent in parts of Antarctica, due to declines in winter sea-ice habitat.