EXCELL MARINE CORPORATION

PO Box 33049

6521 River Road Cincinnati, OH 45233

Phone: (513) 792-9291 • Fax: (513) 936-6532

December 1, 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 Excell Marine Cor poration concerning the U.S. Coast Guard’s (“USCG”) August 28, 2009 Ballast Water Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”). Excell Marine is an inland marine transportation co mpany operating throughout most of our nations inland waterway system. Our corporate headquar ters are in Cincinnati, Ohio and base of operations are in Paducah, Kentucky. We operate a fleet of 6 towboats and employ 42 persons. Excell Marine is an active member of the American Waterways Operators (“AWO”), the

national trade association for the U.S. tugboat, towboat and barge industry.

Excell Marine fully supports AWO’s efforts on th is issue, and would en courage the USCG to pay close attention to the comments submitted by AW O 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 l ack of a sufficient scientific an d technical support in the record for the proposed regulations; (3) th e need to expressly provide in th e 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 operat ions that do not pose a risk of introducing invasive species; (5) the need to eliminat e 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 suffici ently robust and co mprehensive.

For our part, Excell Marine would request that th e final rule expressly st ate that inland river towboats and barges are not subject to th e new ballast water di scharge standards.Apparent in the Preliminary Regulatory Anal ysis document accompanying the NPRM contains analysis that would seem to cl early indicate that the USCG does not believe that the proposed regulations would apply to inla nd towing vessels and barges.

Specifically, on page 37 of that document, the USCG explains:

We have not included the follo wing 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 shelte red environments and do not load and discharge ballast. Their stab ility characteristics generally accommodate the amount and type of cargo they carry, precluding

the need to use ballast wate r 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 lo ad and discharge ballast water.

River vessels. Rivers are usually very sheltered environments having limited wind and wave spect ra. While current conditions play a very large role in sail ing and towing characteristics, ballasting is not generally used to improve these. The operations of the river barge trade make installe d ballast water systems very rare and loading and discharging ball ast water through void tank main deck openings, without installe d piping and pumps, would be a costly and extremely time-consuming evolution.

On page 12 of this analysis the USCG stat es: “Approximately 7,575 vessels from the current vessel population, of which 2,616 are U.S. vessels, would be required to meet the BWDS” – a statistic which would clearly indi cate that the USCG does not belie ve that inland river towboats and barges should, or even would be subject to the new standards.

This USCG preliminary analysis obviously recognizes and agrees with our industry’s ballasting practices. In particular, most of our towboats simply do not discharge ballast water, for many of the reasons cited in the Preliminary Regulatory Analysis. Further, any inland river towboat owned or operated by Excell Marine which woul d carry ballast water would use only potable water when ballasting or they are otherwis e expressly prohibited by company policy from exchanging ballast water in differe nt Captain of the Port Zones. Unfortunately, the text of the NPRM is not as clear on these points as the s upporting documentation, so additional clarification

in the final rule would be beneficial.To the extent that the USCG decides to apply th e 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 expe nsive treatment systems. Those alternative options should include the use of potable wa ter as ballast or comp any policies expressly prohibiting the exchange of ballast water in different Captain of the Port Zones.

Thank you for kindly consider ing these comments.

Sincerely,

Russell E. Painter Regulatory Affairs Manager

cc: Jennifer Carpenter, AWO