Full throttle: Ohio boaters get relief from repeated safety inspections

My latest post on Ohio Watchdog:

Halfway through the boating season, but too late for the Fourth of July holiday, Gov. John Kasich has signed the Boater Freedom Act, which curbs some police inspections.

Now you can traverse the waters of Lake Erie without fear of being stopped multiple times by multiple jurisdictions for a safety check of your boat.

H.B. 29 specifies that the state’s law enforcement may only stop a vessel if they have reasonable suspicion that the vessel or operator is in violation of marine law or otherwise engaged in criminal activity. Owners may voluntarily request a safety inspection, and boats can be inspected during authorized checkpoint operations.

Previously, a boater could be stopped by a state watercraft officer, local marine patrol or U.S. Coast Guard for a safety check, sometimes multiple times in one day.

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Ohio House passes Lake Erie water withdrawal bill

Press Release:

Ohio House Passes House Bill 473 to Permit Responsible Lake Erie Water Withdrawal

Legislation would encourage business growth, job creation


COLUMBUS—The Ohio House of Representatives today passed legislation to establish a permitting process to protect Lake Erie and its tributaries from potentially harmful withdrawals and to establish other requirements related to the implementation of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.


House Bill 473, sponsored by State Representative Lynn Wachtmann (R-Napoleon), provides strong protections for the Lake Erie watershed while, at the same time, ensuring that businesses and agriculture can still grow and create jobs.


“It is extremely important to me and to my colleagues in the Legislature that, in the effort to improve our business climate, we safeguard Ohio’s most precious resource—Lake Erie,” said Representative Wachtmann. “House Bill 473 provides the strong and necessary protections that we all want for the Lake Erie watershed, while also developing the jobs associated with steel plants, farms and many factories in Ohio’s industrial corridor.”


House Bill 473 includes significant compromises from the original House Bill 231 and has received the support of Governor John Kasich—who collaborated on the crafting of this legislation—as well as numerous interested parties and business groups across Ohio.


It greatly reduces the threshold levels compared to House Bill 231 and creates a stakeholder group tasked with studying the issue of significant adverse impacts and bringing recommendations back to the Legislature as to how to resolve the issue. Until that time, House Bill 473 offers guidance to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on how to assess potential impacts.


“This is an opportunity for us to balance being good stewards of our water resources and fostering a more competitive economic climate,” Representative Wachtmann said. “Promoting job creation in Ohio’s hard-hit industrial corridor is just one of the ways we can help revitalize struggling communities without damaging other areas of our way of life.”


House Bill 473 will now be sent to the Ohio Senate for further discussion.


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Lake Erie Wind Turbines Costly and Inefficient

The Buckeye Institute published this editorial by Policy Analyst Mary McCleary and I wanted to share it with you. It looks at the financials of the proposed wind turbine project in Lake Erie and comes up with some startling data.

Green energy is all the rage, and Ohio is jumping on the bandwagon with little regard to financial considerations. While the emerging industry creates jobs and is more environmentally friendly than the traditional energy industry, it comes with a cost – in some cases, a very high cost.

The proposed Lake Erie off-shore wind turbine project is a great example of wasteful spending in the name of going green and creating jobs. Initially, this project is supposed to include five turbines, which will be the first of their kind in North America. These five turbines, to be built by 2012, will cost approximately $100 million and create up to 600 jobs. If the pilot project is a success, a total of 1,200 turbines will be built in Lake Erie over the next 20 years. The complete project will cost $31 billion and could create up to 8,000 jobs according to a recent economic impact study.

Financially, the wind turbines are a bad proposition for Ohio. Of the $31 billion, only $7.8 billion will go toward wages. Thus, in terms of wages, each job will cost $975,000 with approximately $23 billion going toward infrastructure, equipment and other expenses. Additionally, over a 20 year period, state and local governments will only collect $587 million in tax revenues from the project. Thus, the initial $31 billion investment will not be recovered by taxes for 1,050 years (excluding interest payments).

Since the life-span of well-maintained off-shore turbines is only 30 to 40 years, it will be impossible for investors (whether public or private) to recoup their investments in the project. If the government completely financed the off-shore turbines, it would still owe nearly $30 billion when the original turbines expire.

But that's not all, the price of the energy they produce will be higher than other options Ohioans have:

Electricity from the off-shore turbines is expected to cost 23 cents per kilowatt-hour. In contrast, electricity from Ohio’s land turbines costs roughly 9 cents per kilowatt-hour while electricity from coal only costs 4 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Off-shore turbine energy will cost 2.5 times more than energy from land turbines and almost six times more than energy from coal.

So why would anyone want to go forward on this project? It's costly; it's not going to give us cheaper energy; and the payback - not counting interest - is 1,050 years!!!

Yes, this qualifies for 'stuck on stupid' designation.

No business person or individual would spend their own money on such a fiasco. We cannot let Ohio or the federal government spend our tax dollars so frivolously.

Shipwrecks in Lake Erie

I serve as Vice-Chair of the Coastal Resource Advisory Council, a group of individuals who advise the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on coastal issues. As such, I often receive various press releases and I'm passing along this one which I thought was very interesting.

I don't think most people realize how much interest divers have in our Lake Erie Shipwrecks - or in the great preservative qualities of our cold, fresh water lakes. This is a growing tourist industry and it will be enhanced by this new data.

SEARCH FOR LAKE ERIE SHIPWRECKS MORE ACCURATE THANKS TO NEW TECHNOLOGY

ODNR pilot study report now available

SANDUSKY, OH - The report of a pilot study using high-frequency sound waves to locate shipwrecks in the vicinity of Kelleys Island in Lake Erie is now available, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).


Using side-scan sonar and Global Positioning System technologies, the Lake Erie Geology Group of ODNR’s Division of Geological Survey was able to more accurately locate and map known shipwrecks. The one-year study was undertaken to test whether side-scan sonar can help fulfill ODNR’s obligation to inventory, evaluate and protect shipwrecks. It also allowed scientists to develop methods of searching for previously unidentified shipwrecks in areas known to be treacherous for sailors.

Side-scan sonar produces an image like an aerial photograph, but at an oblique angle. Shipwrecks located and mapped during the study include the George Dunbar, Amaretta Mosher, and F.H. Prince. Four wrecks were located on the west and southwest side of Kelleys Island; the ships are assumed to be the Oak Valley, L.B. Crocker, C.H. Plummer, and the tugboat Relief, but it is unclear which ship corresponds to each location without a subsequent study.

Scientists also used the side-scan sonar to study the Gull Island Shoal, known to be the most treacherous reef in Lake Erie. Although as many as five wrecks are believed to have occurred in the vicinity of this reef, no shipwrecks were positively identified there.

“Locating and identifying Lake Erie’s cultural resources helps us preserve our maritime heritage,” said Constance Livchak, supervisor of the Lake Erie Geology Group. “We’d like