This is much worse news than most of you realize. According to the letter
of the law, unless something changes, it will be illegal to have a
recreational vessel in the water after Sptember 30 unless the bilge pump
turned off, every other discharge point disabled, and it has a tarp with a
rain collection system over it. This will be the case until each vessel
gets an EPA incidental discharge permit. It will probably be 1 -5 years
before the permit is drafted and implmented. Then comes the backlog as every
boat in the nation tries to register.

Obviously, they are not going to go around and try to enforce this. It will
be like a lot of things. Official policy will be to ignore it unless some
other incident brings the permit lack to their attention. So, if the Coast
Guard doesn't like your looks or thinks you went too close to that tanker
dock, they'll just pull over for a safety inspection, ask to see your EPA
permit, hand you a fine and instructions to have your boat hauled (or bilge
pump turned off and rain catching cover installed) immediately or face
further fines. A blank check to kick any boat completely off the water any
time they want. Homeland security will love this.

They won't do it to enough vessels to create a backlash that would motivate
congress to fix the mess. It will be like the "No Fly List". It will
happen to just enough people to establish a precedent of taking away a big
chunk of the "freedom" they tell us we are spending all that money in Iraq
to defend. We'll hear that it has happened to a few people but most of us
won't know who although we'll see some on "60 Minutes" on night. Meanwhile,
the threat of something we now take for granted being taken away at someone
in a uniform's whim will be hanging over us every time we untie the
docklines.

Sure, a lot of people died and a lot of expensive real estate was destroyed
in 911. It is important to realize though that freedom is something
different. Since 911, not one iota of freedom has been taken from us by
terroists. Every bit of the freedom we have lost has been taken by our
government.

--
Roger Long