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The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has approved a proposal to designate specific portions of the coastal waters of the United States and Canada as an Emission Control Area (ECA) during its 59th session last week at the IMO Headquarters in London.

The ECA would be for the control of emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter, under the revised MARPOL Annex VI Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships, which was adopted in October 2008 and is expected to come into force on 1 July 2010.

The draft amendments to the revised MARPOL Annex VI concerning the proposed ECA will be submitted to MEPC 60 (March 2010) for adoption (i.e. after the deemed acceptance date of the revised MARPOL Annex VI on 1 January 2010).

Currently, the revised Annex lists two areas for the control of SOx emissions: the Baltic Sea area and the North Sea, which includes the English Channel.

The US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) announced its submission of an ECA application to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) at the end of March this year.

According to the EPA’s data, the creation of a North American ECA would save up to 8,300 American and Canadian lives every year by 2020 by imposing stricter standards on ships that emit harmful emissions into the air near coastal communities. The United States is proposing a 230-mile buffer zone around the nation’s coastline in order to provide air quality benefits as far inland as Kansas.

Under the program, large ships that operate in ECAs would face stricter emissions standards designed to reduce the threat they pose to human health and the environment. These standards would aim to cut sulphur in fuel by 98 percent, particulate matter emissions by 85 percent, and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent from the current global requirements.

To achieve these reductions, ships will be required to use fuel with no more than 1,000 parts per million sulphur from 2015, and new ships would have to use advanced emission control technologies from 2016.