Marina Dock Age

If there is one thing that has united California marina owners and operators it is their opposition to a proposed coastal marina permit regulation being developed by the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB).

At the Marina Recreation Association’s Conference and Trade Show, which was held Nov. 3-5 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., more than 200 attendees heard Randy Short, president of Almar Marinas and a past president of the MRA, describe the proposed regulation as the greatest threat to the industry in the last 20 years. “It will have a serious detrimental effect on an industry that already is a leader in environmental responsibility and pro-active clean water management,” he said.

As currently drafted the regulation applies only to coastal marinas. It requires marinas with 10 or more slips to obtain a permit indicating periodic analysis of water and bottom sediment. The permit is primarily designed to target copper levels in marine sediment. The SWRCB feels that recreational boaters are the main cause of this problem despite numerous potential sources and the legal use of registered bottom paints.

The permit regulations now under consideration also stipulate that “violations” will occur if anything unidentified drifts into a marina. Marina operators at the MRA Conference said this happens virtually every hour of every day.

The permit places the cost of monitoring water quality and bottom sediment pollution on to marina owners and operators. It ignores the fact that marinas in operation for many years may have accumulated metals in their sediments completely unrelated to bottom paints, and the evidence linking these metals to the marina and to effects on local biology is scarce.

“The cost of compliance and testing will be extraordinarily expensive relative to the economics of running and managing a marina,” said Joshua Burnam of Anchor QEA. “It is estimated that an average marina could pay as much as $230,000 per year for testing based on the current version of the permit.”

Jim Hayes, MRA president, said the association is following these events very closely. “This regulation appears to have no other purpose than to place the boating community in the crosshairs of ideologues with no appreciation for the importance of boating to the economy or quality of life in California,” said Hayes.