・Paints and coatings (application, cleaning and removal)
・Other recent or emerging nowaste non-environmental issues (e.g., protected marine animals)
・Oil spill response.
The development of shipboard environmental solutions for these problems recognizes the constraints and opportunities presented by existing, new-construction, and new-design vessels. The Shipboard Waste Management RDT&E Program applies a Fleet-wide perspective to environmental solutions afloat in order to minimize the number of class-specific solutions and maximize the commonality of environmental equipment and systems, thereby minimizing development, procurement, installation operation. logistics, and training requirements and costs.
ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS
Navy ships and submarines are truly mobile in a global sense, and as they travel around they become subject to the environmental laws, regulations, and policies of the United States, individual states and localities, and foreign countries and ports, as well as international agreements that extend to the open ocean. Uhlike land-based facilities, therefore, Navy ships and submarines must be aware of and comply with changing location-specific environmental requirements. In addition, certain environmental laws and regulations also have clear implications for the safety and health of the crews on Navy vessels and for shoreside personnel exposed to ship wastes during offload storage, and disposal. There are, therefore, shipboard activities where occupational safety and health considerations are entwined with "environmental" requirements, most notably in the areas of hazardous materials and air emissions. There are also environmental requirements that have nothing to do with water or air pollution, e.g., protecthg marine mammals from Fleet operations.
The environmental reqirements that apply to Navy ships and submarines are derived from several sources, including: U.S.laws and regulations at national, regional, state, and local (even down to port) levels; Presidential executive orders; DoD and Navy policies; applicable laws, regulations, and practices in foreign waters and ports (which may be controlled by a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and/or host-nation navy practices); and voluntary actions by the Navy to influence or lessen the adverse impact of proposed laws and regulations on the Fleet and/or to address particular publicly-visible environmental issues. This body of requirements is constantly changing as new or expanded environmental restrictions are formalized, new environmental problems (real and perceived) are identified; and the political climate shifis. There are many stakeholders who influence the creation of enviroumental requirements, including: the White House; Congress; regulators at individual Federal agencies (e.g., Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine and Fisheries Service, U.S. Coast Guard); state govemments and regional regulatory bodies (e.g., South Coast Air Quality Management District in southerm California); international bodies (especially the Intenational Maritime Organization); "independent" scientific/technical bodies (e.g., National Science Foundation/National Research Council, professional and classification societies); and national and local environmental-interest groups (e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council. Friends of the Earth, Center for Marine Conservation). The Navy must be continually alert to new environmental developments that may affect its Fleet and must assess emerging potential environmental requirements on an ongoing basis. This includes determining whether and how existing requirements are creating their own unacceptable operational, safety, health, or economic effects.
Existing Requirements
There are numerous environmental requirements that directly or indirectly influence how Navy vessels handle their wastes and manege their other shipboard environmental problems.
