9. Edwards Boatyard

Environmental Improvements, Including Customer Contract, Yield Clear Benefits

Environmental change

This traditional boatyard made environmental improvements and has all slip customers sign environmental contracts.

The traditional boatyard

Entering Edwards Boatyard on Cape Cod is like a step back in time into a traditional New England yard with its array of white buildings showing each stage of business expansion. This full-service boatyard and marina is one of the few that still move boats on marina railways. Edwards uses four separate railways, with the help of a forklift, hydraulic trailer, and launch ramp. The small marina, with 48 slips and 8 moorings, has been at 100% capacity every year with a waiting list (except one summer during the recent recession when 4 slips were empty).

Seventy percent of the boats are powerboats, and 30% sailboats, ranging in size from 18 to 40 feet LOA, with the average 24 feet LOA. On a typical busy summer weekend, about 50% of the boats are used daily and 25% are occupied overnight. There are no liveaboards at Edwards. Transient slips, a fuel dock and pumpout station, and a portable toilet dump station are available.

A major part of Edwards' income is from the repair business and winter storage of 180 boats. Yard services-including fiberglass hull repair, restoration of wood boats, and Awlgrip painting-are specialties at Edwards. Outboard, inboard, I/O and diesel engine repairs, sail and rigging work, and bottom cleaning are also available.

On-site facilities allow for servicing of small and large sailboats or powerboats up to 45 feet LOA with a 4.5-foot draft. Edwards has four marina railways, which run directly into separate buildings. The largest is 50 tons. A hydraulic trailer is used to move boats around outdoors and to/from the storage yard 0.8 mile inland. The retail store sells a full range of marine supplies and engine parts, and has canoes for rent. Electronics are sold and serviced. Nauset Marine, a tenant, sells new and used boats.

Within a 2-mile radius are over 2,400 boats, 2 yacht clubs, and 1 boatyard. The Town of Falmouth's public launch ramp and parking lot abuts Edwards. "I've noticed a trend toward smaller boats on trailers around us," Swain observed, "and I keep the gate to the parking lot open so many of them can visit our store."

Edwards Boatyard was started in 1951 by Swain's grandmother and her Norwegian husband, Einar Edwards. They built 27- and 32-foot wood Jersey sea skiffs, but that business died out about 25 years ago as fiberglass boats began to dominate the market. Swain's father and uncle ran the business until Charlie took over in 1979. Since then Edwards has focused on engine service and repair and restoration of fiberglass and wooden boats. "Our marina land has been in continuous maritime and seafaring use since the 1850s, when White's Landing was established to ship goods to/from Nantucket and other ports." History is very much alive when Charlie Swain speaks. "My family has always been seamen and whalers from New England ports."

Management measures

Edwards Boatyard complies with the marina management measures for sewage facility, sewage facility maintenance, solid waste, liquid materials, and public education, as well as habitat assessment, shoreline stabilization, storm water runoff control, fueling station design, petroleum control, and boat cleaning.

Costs/benefits

Edwards Boatyard spent about $114,000 to make environmental improvements. To maintain the environmental improvements, the boatyard incurred operation/maintenance costs of $18,100 in 1995. Estimated new income because of these changes in 1995 was $100,000, plus $10,000 worth of free publicity. The yard also installed a replacement pumpout, at a cost of $4,500, of which $2,100 was covered by an EPA Regional grant. Net benefits related to environmental improvements during 1995 were approximately $82,000.

Environmental improvements

Keeping everything "neat and clean-but not fancy," is the way owner/manager Charlie Swain repeatedly describes his approach for the boatyard. To do that he runs an environmentally compatible boatyard. Starting about 16 years ago, he began making environmental improvements. Unlike most boatyards, the dominant center of Edwards is a nicely landscaped circular lawn with two ornamental pools, flowers, shrubs, trees, flag pole, and picnic tables for his family, friends, staff, and customers. "Making it nice for people to be here is important to me," he said. "I spent about $5,000 on landscaping."

His next step was to install a pumpout in 1980-then rare in coastal New England and one of the first in Massachusetts. "Back then we might do one pumpout a week. I made 'no discharge' the marina policy 5 years before Massachusetts and EPA designated Waquoit Bay as one of five no-discharge areas in the state in 1964. Last year I spent another $4,500 upgrading with a new Edson pumpout station and added a 2,000-gallon tight tank. Now we average 24 pumpouts per weekend." A commercial septic hauler took 2,400 gallons to the town sewer plant in 1995 at a cost of $150.

"In 1995, I also replaced the in-ground fuel tanks with two double-walled tanks (6,000-gallon gasoline, 1,500-gallon diesel), cathode protection, electronic monitoring for leaks, and overfill protection for a cost of $75,000. Worried about potential contamination getting into the dirt floors of our repair sheds, I paved the floors and railway ramps with concrete (cost $15,000) and added drains ($3,000). In the boat repair and storage buildings, concrete floors have replaced dirt floors of the past, so debris is retained and can be swept up properly. Sediment traps, at a cost of $6,000, went into the lower, sloping floors of all four marina railways to capture and hold spills of oil, resin, and other hazardous material for proper disposal. Adding in the $15,000 cost of getting the coastal permits, including a 21E test report for pollution and engineering, I estimate my total improvements cost $114,000."

Charlie Swain, President of Edwards Boatyard.

In 1995 Edwards spent $7,000 to clean the traps and maintain the landscaping, $500 for oil pads for the oil/water separators, $600 to remove waste oil, and an estimated $10,000 of the owner's time attending marina environment-related meetings and supervising the work environment.

Swain realized that to keep the marina and its waters neat and clean also meant getting the boating customers to help. To do this, in 1992, owner Swain chose to create and make mandatory an environmental agreement as part of his slip contract. It is updated annually and costs only his time. It reads (in part):

Edwards Boatyard Rules & Regulations: "We have had to establish the attached rules in order for all of us to make Edwards Boatyard, the Childs River and its ecosystem a cleaner, safer and more harmonious place to be. Your (mandatory) cooperation is appreciated. . . ."

Thirteen of the 23 rules and regulations are clean water-related, including prohibitions on wake, liveaboards, sewage and contaminated waste discharge, fuel spill, fish cleaning in the marina, and excess noise. It spells out what to do with soaps and boat cleaners, dogs, and hazardous waste. The contract discusses the federal "no discharge" designation of the river and marina and the types of boat toilets allowed, and it warns that violators found polluting the water are subject to U.S. Coast Guard fines and termination of their slip use rights. The contract also lists eight services that Edwards has available "for the betterment of our environment," including restrooms, pumpout, rubbish disposal, hazardous waste management, bilge cleaning, maintenance of fuel vents and MSDs, plus "environmental and safety inspection of your boat." Boaters are encouraged to use oil-absorbing pads in bilges to help keep marina waters clean.

"At first a number of people made comments on it with some saying [regarding the no discharge designation] that they didn't need holding tanks. We lost a couple of customers, but our waiting list was called and we remained full. Two attorneys scratched out several words here and there before signing. Now that our bay is an official no discharge area, everyone is more aware of the environment. Everyone just accepts what we are asking and signs the contract. Boaters like clean water-and clean water is good business. My customers congratulate me for being environmentally friendly."

In 1995, Edwards Boatyard received a $2,100 pumpout grant as part of a U.S. EPA Region 1 demonstration project with the Town of Mashpee. "Our clean operation attracted an estimated $100,000 extra business from people attracted to our environmental approach. And all the publicity we've received was worth over $10,000 in paid advertising," Swain said with a smile. "In 1996 we need to complete our on-site storm water drains, as indicated in our storm water permit pollution prevention plan."

Other improvements and benefits

Like The Little Engine That Could, Edwards Boatyard has worked hard to maintain its traditional ways. But its environmental story, like so many other clean marina successes, is really about its third-generation owner, Charlie Swain.

"As a kid growing up in Falmouth, I could fish and shellfish anywhere on Waquoit Bay. I'm a native Cape Codder who moved away to Cleveland, Ohio, for college and work. There I saw how Lake Erie, once a terrible mess, had been cleaned up and turned around. When I moved back to Cape Cod in 1979 to manage the boatyard, I saw how our shellfish beds and fishing waters were closed because of pollution. This bothered me. I asked, 'What can I do?' First, I promoted clean water and education in the yard. There's nothing wrong with a marina having clean water."

"Next, as a business owner, I chose to become part of the coastal zone management (CZM) process-not to fight it. I got involved in the Massachusetts CZM Program, which designated Waquoit Bay as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Governor Dukakis appointed me to the State CZM Citizen Advisory Board. I worked with environmental groups and the state to get meaningful regulations that we can live with. Look at the positive point-I am a businessman promoting the environmental movement." And Edwards Boatyard got lots of positive publicity, which attracted customers with a concern about the water quality.

To help control runoff, the marina's upland parking lot, which doubles as boat storage in winter, is not paved but covered with crushed shells. Most boat repair is done indoors. Nontoxic antifreeze is used for winterizing boat engines. "We only sell biodegradable products, such as cleaners, in our store," added Swain. Recycling is encouraged for oil, metal, and batteries.

"We made a two-wheel cart with a 50-gallon tank a few years ago to take to each boat to collect their waste oil. This makes the process convenient for the customers, easy for us, and virtually spill-proof," added Swain. All hazardous waste is collected and recycled through a Safety Kleen contract. "We have a floating oil boom which, in case of a spill, we can pull across the 200-foot-wide river to protect what the Corps of Engineers designated the end of the navigable waterway."

Charles Swain did so well at environmental activism in his yard and Massachusetts that in 1994 he was selected as the one businessman nationwide to win the prestigious Walter B. Jones Award for excellence in business leadership from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During the presentation ceremony in Washington, DC, Swain was thanked "for making significant contributions to improve or protect the coastal or ocean environment and for demonstrating the ability to balance business with the environment."

"I've always been progressive," Charlie Swain remarked in his thick Yankee accent. "They just wanted to thank me for doing all this and being an example to other marinas." Indeed, he is an outstanding example of what one traditional boatyard business owner can do in both his marina and state.

Equipment sources

• Pumpout: Edson International, 460 Industrial Park Road, New Bedford, MA 02745-1292.

• Hazardous waste removal: Safety Kleen, 1000 North Randall Road, Elgin, IL 60123-7857.