The U.S. Division of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) has awarded practically $12 million in grants to eight marine freeway initiatives throughout the nation below the USA Marine Freeway Program (USMHP).
One in every of these grants, $600,000 awarded to Lake Michigan Carferry, Inc., is to check the feasibility of changing the historic steamship SS Badger, the final coal-fired, passenger automotive ferry working on the Nice Lakes, to a zero-emission ferry vessel.
From the MARAD press launch: The mission will facilitate the secure, sustainable, and environment friendly switch motion of three kinds of freight: conventional semi-trailers, oversize masses, and mission cargo. The service presents prospects a extra economical and environment friendly transportation route which permits truckers to keep away from a 350-mile journey by means of Chicago on the closely congested I-90. Because the final coal-powered freight and passenger ferry in the USA, this mission will embrace clear vitality and assist the USA Marine Freeway Program’s initiative of decreasing emissions.
The SS Badger is a 410-foot-long coal-fired passenger and automobile ferry working in Lake Michigan on a four-hour shuttle service between Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She started crusing in 1953 and to her admirers, she is a nationwide treasure, whereas to her detractors, she is an environmental menace that till 2013 dumped greater than 4 tons of poisonous coal ash into Lake Michigan day by day. The Badger had been working on an EPA waiver that allowed it to proceed dumping ash.
In 2013, the homeowners of the ship entered right into a consent decree with the EPA to scale back the quantity of ash being dumped and to finish the dumping solely by the start of the 2015 crusing season.
Cruise throughout Lake Michigan on the Badger automotive ferry
