[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 139 (Thursday, July 21, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-17711]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: July 21, 1994]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Department of the Navy

 

Plan for Compliance With Regulation 5 of Annex V to the MARPOL 
Convention

AGENCY: Department of the Navy, DOD.

ACTION: Notice

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SUMMARY: DON is announcing the preparation of a plan for the compliance 
of all ships owned or operated by the Navy with the requirements of 
Regulation 5 of Annex V to the MARPOL Convention. The DON will consult 
with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary 
of Transportation and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
Agency on the special area compliance plan and solicits public 
participation and comment on the special area compliance plan. In order 
to obtain and consider public comments on the Navy's compliance with 
the MARPOL requirements, the Navy will host a public meeting prior to 
preparing the special area compliance plan.

DATES: The meeting will take place on September 20, 1994, at 9:00 a.m.

ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held in the main auditorium (Building 
Number 19) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, 
Carderock, MD.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information on the public 
meeting, contact Ms. Linda Dulin at (410) 293-3513. For information on 
the DON special area compliance plan for MARPOL compliance or to submit 
comments, contact the Officer in Charge, Naval Surface Warfare Center, 
Carderock Division, Annapolis Detachment, 3A Leggett Circle, Annapolis, 
MD 21402-6067 (Attn: Code 634A). The meeting will be conducted in 
English and will include oral briefings and visual displays. Members of 
the public who need additional assistance to participate should contact 
Ms. Dulin as soon as possible to make arrangements.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The United States Navy has explored ways to 
comply with restrictions on the discharge into the ocean of solid waste 
generated aboard its ships. The basis for the restrictions, the Navy's 
efforts to comply and its strategy for achieving future compliance are 
set out below.

Restrictions on Discharge of Solid Waste at Sea

    The United States is a party to the International Convention on 
Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, S. Treaty Doc. No. 3, 100th 
Cong., 1st Sess. (1987). The 1973 Convention was amended by the MARPOL 
Protocol in 1978, 17 I.L.M. 546 (1978), and the combination is 
frequently referred to as MARPOL 73/78. MARPOL 73/78 protects the ocean 
environment by prohibiting some discharges altogether, restricting 
other discharges to particular distances from land, and establishing 
``special areas'' within which additional discharge limitations apply. 
MARPOL 73/78 deals with particular types of discharges in five annexes. 
Annex V addresses discharge of garbage from ships. MARPOL 73/78 was 
implemented for the United States in the Act to Prevent Pollution from 
Ships (APPS), 33 U.S.C. 1901 et seq. Annex V has been implemented for 
the U.S. by the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act 
(MPPRCA), Pub. L. No. 100-220, 101 Stat. 1460 (1987), codified at 33 
U.S.C. 1901 et seq., and section 1003 of the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-160, 107 Stat. 
1745 (DAA-94).
    MARPOL 73/78 provides enhanced protection to particular bodies of 
water, designated ``special areas,'' because their oceanographic 
characteristics and ecological significance requires protective 
measures more strict than other areas of the ocean. The stricter 
requirements become applicable once the International Maritime 
Organization declares that the special areas are ``in effect'' after 
determining that the littoral countries have sufficient capacity to 
handle wastes from ships.
    The international community has long recognized that the 
characteristics of warships pose special problems for strict compliance 
with MARPOL 73/78, which reasonably focuses on civilian vessels which 
are far more prevalent than warships on the world's oceans. Article 3 
of MARPOL 73/78 recognizes the special nature of warships by exempting 
them from strict compliance with the provisions of the Convention. It 
provides that the Convention:

    [S]hall not apply to any warship, naval auxiliary or other ship 
* * *. Each Party shall ensure by the adoption of measures not 
impairing the operational capabilities of such ships * * * that such 
ships act in a manner consistent, so far as is reasonable and 
practicable.

    For U.S. public vessels, implementation of MARPOL 73/78 generally 
preserves the sovereign immunity of warships and public vessels, 
excluding them from strict application of the standards but requiring 
the Secretary of Defense to prescribe regulations ensuring ``so far as 
is reasonable and practicable without impairing the operations or 
operational capabilities'' of the ships that they act ``in a manner 
consistent with the MARPOL Protocol.'' See 33 U.S.C. 1902(b) and (d). 
As required by MARPOL 73/78 and APPS, 33 U.S.C. 1901 et seq., the Navy 
has prescribed discharge limits and operational practices for Navy 
ships that are at least as protective as those required under MARPOL 
73/78 under most circumstances. Under the MPPRCA, however, Navy ships 
were required to come into full compliance with the requirements of 
Annex V of MARPOL 73/78. Under the MPPRCA, the Navy was to come into 
full compliance with Annex V to MARPOL 73/78 by January 1, 1994 or to 
notify Congress if it was unable to comply.

Navy Compliance Efforts

    Since the early 1980's, the Navy has been developing technological 
means to eliminate or mitigate discharge of solid waste from its ships. 
Through a combination of material substitution, source reduction and 
management practices, for example, the discharge of plastic waste was 
cut by over 70 percent. The Navy also pursued development of other 
technology to help manage solid waste at sea. By 1993, the Navy had 
installed equipment and imposed procedures to fully comply with MARPOL 
restrictions on non-plastic waste everywhere but in special areas, and 
had achieved an estimated 70 percent compliance with restrictions on 
plastic waste. In addition, the Navy developed new technology that, 
when finally procured and installed, will allow Navy surface ships to 
come into full compliance with restrictions on discharge of plastic 
waste.
    Concurrent with the technical studies, the Navy engaged numerous 
stakeholders in a dialogue in which the Keystone Center acted as a 
facilitator. The stakeholders included Federal and state agencies, 
Congressional staff, and environmental groups. The dialogue allowed the 
Navy to provide information to the participants about the special 
problems it faces in continuing military operations on the world's 
oceans while still complying with restrictions on the discharge of 
solid waste. The Navy was also better able to understand the concerns 
and interests of the representative stakeholders on the subject.
    The Navy reported its efforts at managing shipboard solid waste in 
``U.S. Navy Compliance with the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and 
Control Act of 1987'' (June 1993). Congress responded by extending the 
original deadlines in the MPPRCA. As required by section 1003(a) of the 
DAA-94, surface ships must eliminate all discharges of plastics by 
December 31, 1998 and must comply with limits on discharges of other 
solid waste in special areas that are ``in effect'' by December 31, 
2000. Submarines must comply with both requirements by December 31, 
2008.

Plan for Compliance in Special Areas

    The Navy has identified the solution to the problem of plastic 
discharges from surface ships and is working hard on a solution for 
submarines. Strict compliance with all requirements for discharges of 
nonplastic solid waste in special areas, however, presents a larger 
problem because of the nature of the waste stream and the military 
mission of warships. Regulation 5 of Annex V pertains to discharges in 
special areas and prohibits discharges of solid wastes, other than food 
wastes. Although the Navy has made important strides in studying the 
shipboard waste stream, in developing management strategies, and in 
developing equipment that can mitigate the effects of solid waste 
discharges, the Navy has not identified a final solution that would 
eliminate all non-food discharges in special areas. Recognizing the 
difficulty in achieving strict compliance with all requirements of 
Annex V, in section 1003(b) of the DAA-94, Congress required the Navy 
to prepare a plan for compliance with the requirements of Regulation 5 
under Annex V. The special area compliance plan must be submitted to 
Congress by November 30, 1996. If the special area compliance plan 
demonstrates that full compliance with all the requirements of 
Regulation 5 of Annex V is not technologically feasible in the case of 
certain ships under certain conditions, it must include the following 
information:
    a. The ships for which full compliance is not technologically 
feasible;
    b. the technical and operational impediments to achieving such 
compliance as rapidly as is technologically feasible; and
    c. such other information as the Secretary of the Navy considers 
relevant and appropriate.
    In accordance with DAA-94 and to ensure the broad public 
understanding of the problem, the Navy will consult with the Secretary 
of State, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Transportation 
and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency as it 
prepares the special area compliance plan. The Navy will also provide 
the opportunity for public participation in preparation of the special 
area compliance plan, including public review and comment. This notice 
is provided to inform the public that preparation of the special area 
compliance plan is beginning and to solicit public comments on the 
scope of the studies to be planned and the alternatives to be studied.

Navy Mission and Resource Constraints

    Any solution to the Navy's solid waste problem in special areas 
must consider the types of missions that the Navy is directed to carry 
out in special areas and the constraints and challenges inherent in 
operating warships at sea. These considerations include the following:
    The Navy must be prepared to carry out duties assigned by the 
President to protect the nation's interests around the world. Most of 
the designated special areas include locations of great strategic and 
economic interest, including the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the 
Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and the Baltic. Navy 
missions in such areas often require that ships remain on station at 
sea for prolonged periods of time. For example, surveillance and 
tracking missions for drug interdiction or for enforcement of economic 
sanctions would be compromised if ships were required to leave station 
and steam to port to offload waste. For another example, Naval ships 
maintaining combat air patrol over a crisis area like Bosnia often must 
remain on station at sea for months at a time to prevent a break in 
coverage. Navy ships have also often been ordered to remain for weeks 
or months off the coast of nations in turmoil so that U.S. forces can 
evacuate U.S. citizens if necessary. In other circumstances, Navy ships 
may be required to remain offshore to provide access to sophisticated 
medical care in case of injury or wounding of peacekeeping troops. Some 
Navy ships, especially submarines, necessarily must operate without 
underway logistic support from other Navy ships. Thus, the special area 
compliance plan must consider any impacts that it may impose on mission 
effectiveness and operational flexibility.
    The special area compliance plan must be compatible with warship 
design. Navy ships are designed to maximize their ability to perform 
their missions, especially combat missions. Ships are self-contained 
units with severe limits on space, weight and power requirements for 
their equipment. While naval architecture and ship design always 
require compromise among competing priorities, Navy ships must be 
equipped, manned and constructed to function effectively and survive in 
far more rigorous circumstances than commercial ships. Navy ships must 
devote considerable space and weight to specialized combat systems 
equipment and damage control features. They have far larger crews than 
commercial vessels because more systems must be operated, and most 
routine equipment maintenance must be done by the ship's crew at sea.
    Many classes of Navy ships are already classified as ``space and 
weight critical,'' which means that any equipment added to the ship 
(for example, to manage solid waste) must be compensated for by 
removing other equipment already devoted to some other portion of the 
ship's mission. Many ships also have only modest additional power 
available to drive additional equipment and would have to turn off 
other important systems to use a waste control system with high power 
requirements. Thus the Navy's special area compliance plan must 
carefully address the size, weight and power requirements of any 
additional equipment.
    The crew size on Navy ships, an important factor in determining the 
size of the waste stream, varies tremendously. Submarines have crews of 
approximately 120. Cruisers have crews of approximately 380. Large 
amphibious ships have crews of approximately 2000. Aircraft carriers 
have crews approaching 6000. The Navy's special area compliance plan 
must address solutions that can be adapted successfully to several 
different capacities.
    Because they operate independently in a dynamic, often physically 
hostile marine environment, Navy ships and the equipment on them must 
be designed to withstand stresses and operating conditions not 
encountered on shore. The Navy has experienced difficulty with some 
``off the shelf'' equipment not specifically designed for shipboard 
use. Shipboard equipment must also be reliable, maintainable by Navy 
crews, and capable of being logistically supported by the Navy supply 
system. The Navy's special area compliance plan must address 
reliability and maintainability of any new equipment in a marine 
environment.
    The Navy faces a fiscal environment where many meritorious programs 
must compete for a declining total amount of resources, in terms of 
both funding and personnel. Development, acquisition, installation and 
operation of new equipment, therefore, must be cost efficient. The 
Navy's special area compliance plan must address the resources needed 
to implement it.
    For the reasons discussed above, to be feasible for use by the Navy 
for vessels throughout the fleet, equipment or strategies to implement 
an alternative must balance operational, design, cost, and 
environmental considerations in the same manner that equipment designed 
for propulsion, communications, weapons or other shipboard functions 
are evaluated. The criteria normally considered by the Navy for 
shipboard systems include those set out in the Appendix to this notice.

Alternatives To Be Studied

    In developing the special area compliance plan, the Navy proposes 
to analyze three different categories of alternatives. The first two 
categories would ensure full compliance with Regulation 5 under Annex 
V. The third alternative would not ensure full compliance with 
Regulation 5 under Annex V, but may preserve many or all of the 
environmental values protected by Regulation 5 in the event that full 
compliance is not feasible. The Navy remains committed to full 
compliance, but is taking this opportunity to increase the information 
available on ways to mitigate discharges in special areas. The Navy 
will also analyze combinations of the technologies from the distinct 
alternatives. The general categories of alternatives are:

On Board Destruction of Waste Alternative

    This category of alternatives focuses on technologies that result 
in virtually complete destruction of waste aboard the vessel. These 
might include incineration or more technologically advanced thermal 
destruction. Study of these technologies would include study of the 
proper handling of any residue as well any safety concerns and cross 
media pollution.

Store and Retrograde Waste Alternative

    The second category of alternatives focuses on technologies that 
permit storage and retrograde of waste, either on board the generating 
ship or by service force ships. These would include study of 
refrigeration, compaction, odor barrier bags and other means to 
facilitate storage and retrograde of waste for disposal on shore.

Process Solid Waste Until It Is ``Environmentally Benign'' and 
Discharge Alternative

    The third category of alternatives focuses on technologies that are 
designed to process waste to produce an effluent that is 
environmentally benign if discharged to the sea. The study of this 
alternative would also include fate and effect studies of the discharge 
and the relative effect of such discharges in comparison to other 
discharges from land or sea sources.

Public Participation

    The Navy solicits public input to the special area compliance plan. 
Among other topics, public comments could address the scope of the 
alternatives to be considered, the studies considered necessary, the 
measures of merit by which to evaluate the alternatives, and suggested 
technologies or strategies for compliance. As described above, the Navy 
will hold a public meeting to obtain and consider public comments on 
the Navy's compliance with the MARPOL requirements. Members of the 
public are invited to attend.
    Following the public meeting the Navy will analyze the alternatives 
(including combinations of the alternatives), conduct required research 
and prepare a draft special area compliance plan. Comments should be 
submitted in writing to the Officer in Charge, Naval Surface Warfare 
Center, Carderock Division, Annapolis Detachment, 3A Leggett Circle, 
Annapolis, MD 21402-6067 (Attn: Code 634A) in time to be received not 
later than 30 days after the date of the public meeting. The Navy 
expects to formally consult with the other concerned agencies on the 
draft special area compliance plan in late 1995 and to make the draft 
special area compliance plan available for public comment in Spring, 
1996. After public review and comment, the Navy will submit the plan to 
Congress.

Appendix--Equipment Suitability Considerations

1. Installation feasibility
    a. Back fitting existing vessels
    b. Design in new vessels
2. Performance (adapted to waste management equipment)
    a. Throughput or processing capacity
    b. Pitch and roll sensitivities
    c. Flexibility in handling various blends of wastes
    d. Resulting waste products and/or residues
    e. Ability to handle classified documents
3. Space and physical support requirements
    a. Floor space (footprint)
    b. Height
    c. Volume
    d. Requirement for multi-deck installation
    e. Supporting hardware
    f. Staging/stowage area for supplies or raw material
4. Shipboard load/stability factors
    a. Absolute weight
    b. Center of gravity/moment as installed on ship
5. Reliability
    a. Mean time between critical failures (MTBCF)
    b. Types of failures (critical, noncritical, discrepancies, 
persistent)
    c. Qualitative assessment of impact on crew
    d. Effects of heat, humidity, ocean climate and shipboard 
vibration
6. Maintainability (at sea)
    a. Preventive maintenance requirements
    b. Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
    c. Mean Logistics Delay Time (MLDT); average time to get spare 
parts
    d. Maximum Allowable Time to Make Repairs (Mmax)
7. Staffing
    a. Number of manhours required for operation
    b. Availability of required skills aboard ship
    c. Training requirements
8. Compatibility with military mission
    a. Electromagnetic radiation
    b. Electronic/electrical interference
    c. Acoustic signature
    d. Visible emissions
9. Interoperability with other shipboard systems
10. Survivability in a marine/combat environment
11. Logistics support
    a. Availability or repair parts
    b. Technical data and maintenance requirements
    c. Supply support
    d. Support equipment (e.g., special tools)
    e. Spares and consumables requirement
12. Safety and Health considerations
    a. Noise levels produced
    b. Fire/explosion hazards
    c. Chemical/biological hazards
    d. Odor production
    e. Temperature of equipment/system surfaces and contribution to 
ship heating/cooling load
    f. Physical hazards, including those associated with moving or 
rotating parts
13. Costs associated with:
    a. Research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E)
    b. Procurement
    c. Installation
    e. Operation
    f. Logistic support.

    Dated: July 15, 1994.
Lewis T. Booker, Jr.,
LCDR, JAGC, USN, Federal Register Liaison Officer.
[FR Doc. 94-17711 Filed 7-20-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3810-AE-P