BY JOHN RICHARDSON

MaineToday Media, Inc.

Thousands of Maine pleasure boaters, from kayakers to sailors to power boaters, could soon face new federal permitting rules intended to keep pollution out lakes, rivers and the ocean.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, driven by a controversial 2006 California court decision, is preparing to impose the rules on more than 13 million recreational boaters by the end of September. Unless the courts or Congress step in, each boater would effectively be assigned a Clean Water Act discharge permit that forbids such activities as washing a moored boat with soap that contains phosphates, dropping trash such as food waste or cigarette butts overboard or launching a small outboard without inspecting and cleaning its hull.

While it's unclear how the agency would enforce the rules, the prospect of a new layer of regulations and federal fines has riled up members of recreational boating community and industry in Maine and across the country.

Many of the targeted activities are already regulated and are far from the biggest threats to the ocean, they say.

"This court has forced EPA to spend valuable time, when they could have been working on real issues (instead of writing) some permit that they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of enforcing," said Susan Swanton of the Maine Marine Trade Association, a group representing marinas.

Several boaters in Portland Tuesday said they had not heard about the regulations and had varying reactions. But they will grow concerned when they learn about the new rules, industry representatives said.

"I don't see any damage from washing boats," said Phineas Sprague, owner of Portland Yacht Services. "The only way you're going to get zero impact is to not be there at all.... It's gone beyond rational."

EPA officials say the agency is not pleased to be going through the process either. But they say the agency has proposed standards that will promote cleaner boating behavior without being too much of a hardship for boaters.

"This particular rule was forced by a court action," said Dale Kemery, a spokesman for the EPA. "There's a lot of misunderstanding about how this might affect small-boat owners."

The EPA has exempted recreational boats from Clean Water Act discharge limits for about 30 years, after deciding it would not be practical or worthwhile to issue permits to every boater. But that changed as a result of a case in U.S. District court in California over whether federal law applied to ballast water discharges from large ships.

The court ruled in 2006 that no group, not even recreational boaters, can be exempt from the Clean Water Act. It ordered that permits be issued to boaters by Sept. 30, 2008.

EPA appealed and is still fighting the decision. Congress, meanwhile, has been moving to pass a new law to formally exempt recreational boaters.

There are a lot of reasons for people to change their mind about boating these days, including fuel prices and lack of leisure time, Swanton said. "You add on top of that some foolish regulation that could open these people up to scrutiny and fines -- is that the straw that breaks the camel's back?"

Even Maine's Department of Environmental Protection is opposing the rule.

Andrew Fisk, director of the agency's land and water bureau, testified in Congress last month that a permitting system for individual boaters is a waste of resources.

"Focusing on individual recreational boats the way this draft permit does doesn't make sense," Fisk said in an interview this week.

Swanton and others said they are not counting on Congress acting in time to block the regulations and that concern is growing as the deadline approaches.

The proposal from EPA is to automatically issue federal discharge permits to all recreational boats or uninspected passenger vessels less than 79 feet in length. That group includes canoes and rowboats, as well as commercial fishing vessels such as lobster boats, according to the DEP.

The owners of those boats would not have to pay for the permits or file any paperwork, according to state and federal officials. But they would be responsible for knowing -- and following -- the rules.

A second permit and a more rigorous set of rules would be applied to larger vessels. Some of those vessels would be required to file plans for containing pollution.

While the permit is free, some critics have pointed to theoretical fines of as much as $32,500 per day under the Clean Water Act.

EPA officials say that, while the agency did not choose to deal with the pollution this way, the permit will lead to cleaner practices at little direct cost to boat owners. The EPA estimates it will cost anywhere from $0.29 to $25.99 each year for a typical boater to comply with the rules.