The stench of diesel exhaust floats in the breeze on a recent day at the Steamship Authority terminal in Woods Hole, as several freight trucks run their engines and a massive ferry belches dark gray exhaust from its stack.
The hundreds of thousands of tourists who ride these ferries each year to vacation on the island of Martha’s Vineyard probably don’t notice the polluted air from this operation.
But in this small coastal community — the main conduit for moving people and goods to and from the Vineyard — many Woods Hole residents are fed up with the foul air.
“There are times when I can’t even breathe in my backyard,” said Pamela Stark, who lives near the ferry terminal. “I’m very sensitive to diesel particulate. I can be walking around the village four streets that way, southwest wind blowing, and that whole area is blanketed in the diesel exhaust. The impact is incredible.”
Stark is part of an increasingly vocal group of residents calling on state environmental leaders and the ferry agency to track emissions and take concrete steps to shift some of the fleet away from diesel to less polluting hybrid ferries.
Increases in ferry and truck traffic are fueling the activism. More than 62,000 trucks rumbled onto ferries in Woods Hole and the two Vineyard ports last year — up nearly 32% from 2014, according to data provided by the Steamship Authority.
Last year, the ports in Woods Hole and Martha’s Vineyard saw 16,586 vessel trips, according to the Steamship Authority. That’s an 8% increase over a decade ago, and as activists point out, the boats are also getting bigger.
On summer days, there’s a ferry in Woods Hole coming or going every 19 minutes from early dawn until 10:15 p.m. — more than 50 trips, according to the Steamship Authority’s operating schedule
“They have funneled the vast majority of the Vineyard traffic here,” said Mary Musacchia, another Woods Hole resident.
Residents like Stark and Musacchia are pointing to greener technology as one solution to reduce emissions. Just a few weeks ago the nation’s first hybrid ferry — carrying vehicles and passengers — started operating across the country in Seattle. It’s part of Washington state’s $133 million project to convert a 255-foot-long ferry — the Wenatchee — to hybrid propulsion with electric power sources at its mainland and island ports.
Washington is serious about cutting emissions and hitting targets enacted by legislators, said Anders Hammersborg, who runs the ferry agency’s system electrification project.
“On Puget Sound for one, and within just the (department of transportation) network, we’re the largest polluters,” he said. “So that’s why the priority is given to the ferries here to electrify.”
Hammersborg said they’ll spend about $1.2 billion to convert the Wenatchee and two more ferries and electrify terminals over the next several years. And fully electric ferries are in their future, too.
“Our passenger ferries here in Puget Sound are run by the counties and they’re looking at fully electric,” Hammersborg said. “Large auto ferries like this, I don’t think the technology is there yet to be fully electric. But it’s certainly possible that in 10 or 20 years, that’s what we’d be looking at.”
Seattle’s new hybrid ferry is bigger than any operated by the Steamship Authority, and in Woods Hole and on the Vineyard, there’s pressure to follow that less polluting path. Ferry agency leadership commissioned a report two years ago that concluded that constructing a plug-in hybrid ferry would cost more than $60 million and significantly reduce carbon, nitrous oxide and particulate matter emissions.
That price tag — likely higher now — remains a barrier. Robert Davis, the Steamship Authority’s outgoing general manager, said it’s still a goal, but admitted the project is not a top priority.
“We would be looking … in probably another five or so years whether there’s an opportunity to go to some sort of hybrid system, which was something that had been started but then got put in the back burner,” he told the ferry governing board at a monthly meeting in April.
A hybrid conversion process would take years. One step the ferry agency has taken to reduce its carbon footprint is piloting an alternative diesel biofuel this summer, called R99, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on one ferry. They are also increasing the use of hybrid and electric shuttle buses.
Meanwhile, critics say other recent moves by the Steamship Authority have actually helped increase emissions. The authority purchased three old freight boats from a Louisiana offshore oil company and retrofitted them to carry freight trucks, cars and passengers — at a cost of $81 million, offset by $28 million in federal funding.
“Sixteen-year-old boats with 16-year-old diesel: They have poor emission standards,” said Robert Hannemann, who lives on Martha’s Vineyard and is a member of the island’s Steamship Authority Citizens’ Action Group.
“The new boat that they put in place is less efficient in terms of gallons of diesel used per mile than the largest of the current conventional boats here,” he said.
He’s talking about the Aquinnah; it’s used for the Woods Hole and Vineyard route, and it guzzles fuel. The ferry only got 14.9 miles per gallon of marine diesel in June; that’s less efficient than the nearly twice as big Island Home ferry, according to a Steamship Authority fuel oil report.
“Its fuel usage is just abominable. The Steamship appears to be going backwards rather than forward in terms of carbon emissions,” said Nat Trumbull, a co-founder of the Southeast MA Regional Transportation Citizens Task Force in Woods Hole, who also teaches sustainability at the University of Connecticut.
Davis told GBH News that the freight boats are bigger, safer and more reliable than the ones they replaced. And he believes their fuel efficiency could improve as they operate more frequently. But retrofitting the newly-acquired boats with less polluting diesel engines would cost more than $12 million per vessel, a study for the ferry agency reported last year.
Earlier this year, Woods Hole activists pushed the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to install an air quality monitoring station near the ferry port. Massachusetts — which has just 25 stations across the entire state — hasn’t agreed yet to that request. While they await a decision, the Woods Hole group bought four low-cost sensors for about $1,200.
Trumbull says the sensors are already showing spikes in air pollution when the Island Home comes and goes. In addition to updating the fleet with greener ferries, he and other activists say enforcing the state’s anti-idling law would also help. On top of their wish list is a future port plugged into the electric grid to support hybrid and electric ferries.
Community groups are pessimistic this will happen because of the cost. The Steamship Authority was created by the state Legislature more than 60 years ago to be the “lifeline to the islands” and is meant to be self-sustaining through fare revenues, not state taxes.
Trumbull said one result from the authority’s structure is bad air that puts the health of both locals and tourists at risk.
“One of the fundamental problems with the Steamship Authority is its quasi-public status and essentially non-funding by the commonwealth,” said Trumbull. “The Steamship has to come up with its own funding and is under constant pressure to keep fares down. Any innovation for cleaner engines, hybrid, electric really becomes an afterthought when the steamship’s trying to keep costs down at all steps.”
