Ethanol Fuel: The Nightmare Continues

Have you heard the latest about fuel that is 15 percent ethanol (E15)?

It damages marine engines!

(Read the story here and also check out this article in the Journal Sentinel.)

Just because E10 has destroyed thousands of marine and small (lawnmower, chainsaw, etc.) engines, who would have thought this would happen?

That’s sarcasm, folks. The ethanol boondoggle is a perfect example of crony capitalism run amok. Behind the façade of developing an alternative fuel, our elected officials --- on both sides of the aisle ---  have financed an industry that benefits a few of their constituents (corn growers and ethanol producers) while the rest of us pay for it.

 Let us count the ways:

 “Corn-based ethanol requires 54 percent of the energy to process the corn into ethanol and 24 percent to grow the corn required for this process,” said, Dr. Venkat Lakshim, editor of Energy Digital, a website for energy professionals. “As a result, there is a return of only 30 percent or so of the energy, making this inefficient as compared to conventional gasoline (500 percent --- produces five times the energy required to produce it.).”

Also, growing more corn for ethanol increases use of fertilizers, which wash into rivers and streams and contribute to expanding dead zones in and around the mouth of the Mississippi and other rivers that empty into the oceans. Plus, each gallon of ethanol produced creates more than 10 gallons of sewage-like effluent, while requiring 1,700 gallons of water.

And let’s not forget the engines, millions of which were not designed to be run on a fuel containing alcohol, which is a solvent and attracts moisture.

Recently, North Carolina angler Bill Frazier learned that not even taking precautions will help when you run ethanol-based fuel in your outboard. Frazier is conservation director for his state’s B.A.S.S. Federation Nation and a chemist and water-quality expert.

The seal and diaphragm on his lower fuel pump went bad while he was on the water with a youth angler, who spotted the “slick.” He then learned that if one pump went bad, the other would as well.

“I opted not to have it replaced and risk another slick,” he says.

“Not environmentally as responsible as I might be, but if I replace it now, before it fails, it removes a statistic from the pool to prove ethanol is a bad thing, until we have resolved the materials conflict issue. This also does not talk about the residual issues, and costs to me they are not covering, of putting too much oil in my engine, fouled plugs, carb cleaning, etc. All due to ethanol degradation which I ‘thought’ I had preempted with gas treatment.”

Now here’s the kicker regarding this “green” fuel that politicians mandated that we must use to benefit the environment:

“One drop of gas/oil pollutes 1 million gallons of water,” Frazier says. “This definition is based on a drop being about a milliliter and a gallon being 4 quarts. I did not come up with this. It is a standard in the industry. I can easily detect one million times less than that with my instruments.

“I lost about ½ cup of oil,” he continues. “Converting drops or milliliters, ½ cup = 119 milliliters or drops. Therefore, I polluted 119 million gallons of water because my seal failed due to ethanol degradation.

“Anyone want to try and stack up the benefits of ethanol to an unabated polluting of 119 million gallons of water that could have been prevented if ethanol had not eaten up the seal?”

Politicians Favor Carp Over Welfare of Public Resources

“I’m from the government. I’m here to help.”

No doubt you’ve heard that oxymoronic one-liner before.

Aside from the military, government is more a problem causer than a problem solver.

That’s certainly the case with Asian carp and the damage that they are doing to the nation’s waterways, according to recent articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

One of them begins this way:

Maybe a 40-pound silver carp upside the head would convince President Barack Obama of the urgent need to take decisive action against these invasive filter feeders.

And it continues:

"This is a crisis situation," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine warned in an interview. "And yet the Obama administration seems to be oblivious to it."

If the president's got time to hand out dried fruit to trick-or-treaters, he's got time to order the Army Corps of Engineers to get off its doughnuts and complete -- in 18 months instead of five years -- its study of a permanent separation between the largest freshwater ecosystem in the world and the Mississippi River.

But he won't. Wouldn't want to upset the big-money guys in Chicago.

Instead, Obama will continue to waste taxpayer money on an apologist, I mean, carp czar, futile fish kills, superfluous studies and stonewalling of Great Lakes governors, attorneys general, scientists and environmentalists -- all of whom recognize that these gilled guerillas will lay waste to the $7 billion Great Lakes commercial fishing industry and the 800,000 jobs it supports.

Read Presidential leadership against against carp? Go fish here.

The other article says that Jerry Rasmussen, a former biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “blames the importation of the fish, as well as a political system that bends over backward to promote and protect commerce, yet fails to protect the environment.”

Rasmussen also says this:

"When the USFWS was criticized for the importation of Asian carp many years ago, it turned over the program to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"All federal and local officials wanted to do were help Southern fish farmers. They didn't care about what would happen when these fish got loose. The ponds used by fish farmers are built on river bottoms and can't be drained.

Today, Illinois officials keep dragging their feet, Rasmussen said, believing that it's more important to keep barges moving through a canal than to seal off the Chicago waterways from the Great Lakes to keep out the Asian carp.

"The [federal] Asian carp czar (John Goss) listens to the interests of commerce," Rasmussen said. "Goods being shipped down the Chicago Canal that could just as easily be moved by train and truck. Politicians don't want to do anything.”

Read ‘Wonder fish’ turns into environmental piranha: The battle against Asian carp here.

Channeling Teddy Roosevelt

In a previous post (Future of Fishing Threatened by Compromise), I said that Berkley’s Jim Martin stressed compromise in his opening and closing remarks at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership saltwater summit. Actually, he did so only in his opening speech, and I apologize for the inaccuracy.

In his own words, here is what he said in his closing remarks:

“My last talk was about the battle before us regarding conservation funding and the weakening of environmental regulations that some see as ‘job killing.’ I believe it is really pollution and habitat destruction that is job killing. 

“I was channeling Teddy Roosevelt as best I could, using the example of his leadership against the hyper-rich business interests trying to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service and Roosevelt’s commitment to scientifically trained experts (U.S. Forest Rangers, in this case) to protect the country’s natural resource assets.  He used the great fire of 1910 as his battle cry.  I am using the HR1 bill as mine.”

He also says that he’s “no patsy” on the issue of access, and I am very happy to learn that. Considering the threats that we face from preservationists and their allies in this administration, we need strong advocates for recreational fishing as never before.

Angling Groups Fear Feds Will Close Fisheries

B.A.S.S. has joined with six other organizations to voice concern about the possibility of recreational fisheries closures being implemented by the National Ocean Council, based on recommendations from the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee (MPA FAC).

Let’s be honest here: We’re playing against a stacked deck. Jane Lubchenco at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and others in this administration are determined to force us off the water, if not all at once, then a little bit at a time. And they’re going to keep relentlessly pushing that agenda until they no longer are in power.

The best that we can hope for until then is a holding action, anchored by organizations like B.A.S.S., the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and others who sent a letter to NOAA and the Department of the Interior.

In that letter, they expressed the following concerns about the MPA committee’s recommendations document:

• The lack of recognition for the importance of recreational fishing to conservation efforts and the need to establish it as a national priority.
• The potential for the designation of large aquatic areas as MPAs that unjustifiably restrict or eliminate recreational fishing access.
• The need to define conservation as “the wise use of the Earth and its resources for the lasting good of men” to ensure that the reader understands that conservation is concurrently achieving the multiple objectives for sustained natural resource use.

They also said this:

“The treatment of recreational fishing throughout the MPA FAC document troubles our community and reflects an apparent misconception about the importance of recreational fishing to conservation efforts. Recreational use of our public waters is compatible with – and in fact is essential to – sound conservation and natural resource stewardship, as is highlighted by contributions made to such successful conservation programs as the Sport Fish Restoration and Boating Trust Fund.

“Since 1950, recreational anglers and boaters have (through this unique user tax on motorboat fuel, fishing tackle, and other sportfishing equipment) generated more than $5.7 billion in funding for fishery conservation and enhancement, habitat restoration, clean water programs and boating safety programs. In addition, fishing license sales generate nearly $650 million in annual revenues for state conservation and education programs.”

Read the entire letter here.

And tell your representatives and senators to defend recreational fishing against the threat posed by the National Ocean Council and its Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning.

B.A.S.S., Recycled Fish Join Forces for Conservation

B.A.S.S. and Recycled Fish have joined forces for cleaner waters and better fisheries.

As two of the nation’s best sportsman conservation organizations, they now will team up on a variety of projects, including the program “I am more than a sportsman. I am a steward.”

“There is no group of people more committed to healthy waters than anglers, and B.A.S.S. members represent the most passionate anglers in the world,” said Teeg Stouffer, Recycled Fish Executive Director.

“Together, Recycled Fish and B.A.S.S. can make the point that as concerned anglers, we don’t just ‘do’ a lake cleanup once a year, we are lake cleanups, and we can live a lifestyle where our waters are better off on account of us. After all, healthy waters grow more and bigger fish.”

Noreen Clough, B.A.S.S. Conservation Director, added, “B.A.S.S. Conservation is committed to caring for our waters from coast to coast and around the world. Our award-winning projects are creating, maintaining, and sustaining black bass fisheries and the habitats on which they depend. This partnership helps us continue to do so efficiently and in new and exciting ways.”

As a life member and a long-time Senior Writer for B.A.S.S. and a member of the board of directors for Recycled Fish, I am extremely proud of this partnership, and expect great things from it. 

One of those things is doing a better job of picking up after ourselves in regards to plastic baits. As I’ve documented at B.A.S.S. Times and here (Search “plastic baits”), bass eat discarded baits and some inevitably are dying a slow death from starvation because of it.

This is a problem that has been too long ignored.

Anglers should bring those used baits off the water with them and dispose of them properly. And clubs and federations should maintain collection bins at tournament sites. We are stewards, and we should act like it.

To learn more about the partnership, go here.