Things that catch on in California seem to spread to the rest of the country. Whether it is a new form of recreation like surfing in the '60s, rollerblading in the '90s, or a new regulation such as indoor smoking bans in restaurants, the West Coast often leads the East and everywhere in between.


One of the latest developments coming out of California is a regional ban of copper-based bottom paints. While this ban right now only applies to portions of San Diego Bay, the state board that approved the ban explicitly announced plans to expand the ban statewide in two years. In addition, the research on which these actions are based specifically mentions the Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes and other prime boating areas as in need of future regulation.

The efforts of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board to establish a limit on the amount of dissolved copper in the waters of the Shelter Island Yacht Basin are expected to be mimicked by other boards along the California coast. For boaters in harbors deemed "polluted" by copper, this could result in dramatically higher maintenance costs.

"The economic effects on boaters will be horrendous," says Jerry Lounsbury. Vice President South, of Recreational Boaters of California, a statewide advocacy group for California boaters that has been lighting the copper paint ban since 2003. "The average boater like me is going to drop out," says Lounsbury.

Anti-fouling paints keep marine organisms from growing on boat bottoms because they contain biocides, chemicals that hinder the growth of barnacles and other animals. Most contain copper compounds along with anti-slime boosters, chemicals that dissuade algae from growing by preventing photosynthesis. Copper compounds alone do not prevent algae growth.

The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board has established a daily limit on the total amount of dissolved copper allowed in the waters of the Shelter Island Yacht Basin, which is part of San Diego Bay. Without examining other potential sources of copper in San Diego Bay, the Board decided that recreational boaters, marinas and the Port Authority would bear the burden of lowering the amount of copper in the water, based on the assumption that recreational boats, and the copper-based anti-fouling paints on their hulls, are the major source of copper in the basin.

The board has laid out a 15-year plan to phase out the use of such paints in the Yacht Basin, which was recently approved by the State Water Resources Control Board. The long delay is designed to give boaters plenty of lead time to switch to non-toxic bottom paints and hopefully allow the paint manufacturers to develop effective alternatives.

The board's plan is drawing fire from concerned boaters. During a September meeting. "The water board confirmed that they don't have any science to show the effectiveness of alternatives," reported Joe Baiunco of RBOC after the hearing. "They only have anecdotal evidence from four or five boat owners who switched recently."

Lounsbury is equally miffed. "The state takes pride in driving the market towards cleaner alternatives, but they have yet to demonstrate any harmful effects specific to copper in Shelter Island Yacht Basin. If the water is so toxic why is Southwestern Yacht Club raising white sea bass fingerlings for the Department of Fish and Game in Shelter Island Yacht Basin?" he asks.

The Department of Boating and Waterways (DBW) also has voiced skepticism about the proposal. Ron Flick, an oceanographer with DBW, testified that while the department supports the goal of reducing copper in the harbor, alternatives are not yet proven to be available or effective, no site-specific studies have been conducted that demonstrate ecological harm, and there is an absence of provisions for enforcement of the ban. But of greater concern to the average boater is the increased cost.

"We believe the costs to boaters will be higher than what is outlined in the water board plan," says Jerry Desmond Jr., RBOC Director of Government Relations.

The water board's desire to move recreational boaters towards non-toxic paints will cost boaters $700 more per-year just to keep their new hull paint clean, according to RBOC's economic analysis. The new hull paints must be scrubbed by divers more than twice as often as anti-fouling paints to prevent the build up of hard corals and barnacles. In addition, the cost of switching over to the new paint will run around $150 per-foot of boat length, because all the old copper-based anti-fouling paint must be stripped from the hull. That one-time cost would average around $5,000 dollars for a 35-footer.

"The guy on the street has been brain-washed into believing that this is a minor change, it won't cost him much money, and that he is helping the environment," says Lounsbury. "He's wrong."

The water board's plan is based on a study conducted by California Sea Grant on behalf of the Department of Boating and Waterways. Known as the "Carson Report" after its lead author, the report details the scope of the problem, number of boats and marinas potentially affected and offers many different cost comparisons based on several variables. The water board accepted the general finding of the Carson Report which suggested that the switch over would not cause economic hardship with three key assumptions: that the cost of non-toxic bottom paints would eventually decrease to about the same as current paints; non-toxic paints would last much longer than current paints; and that boat owners would opt to switch to non-toxics at the most economically convenient time, meaning when the boat needed all the paint stripped from the hull. But many boaters today use ablative bottom paints that don't require stripping. For most boaters, there is never a need to strip the bottom.