Editorial: Coast Guard’s Performance Is A Paradox

We have on numerous occasions written kind words about the performance of the U.S. Coast Guard, major player in the homeland security game, protector of mariners at sea. But the agency’s involvement in the licensing of seamen, both blue water and brown, turns it into a paradox.

There is no denying that CG personnel performed masterfully during hurricane recovery efforts and that many Katrina victims owe their lives to the agency’s rescue efforts. But there is also no denying that the agency is causing one very big headache for the towing industry and efforts to man its boats. It is not the first time we have broached the subject. Talk to the grass-roots crewmen, talk to the industry leaders, talk to almost anyone, and you’ll find that the Coast Guard puts far too many stumbling blocks in the path of mariners seeking to renew their licenses and new potential mariners seeking their first jobs.

Why is that? Seriously now, why is that? We all know that water transportation is vital to the economic well-being of the nation. We wonder why, when it is so important, the Coast Guard feels compelled to make things so tough. It is so unfairly tough that many trained rivermen with decades of experience are just plain fed up and are leaving the industry.

Believe it or not, the Coast Guard is also guilty of getting rid of blue- and brown-water mariners who have committed no crime—people who are guilty of no infraction whatsoever.

A case in point is that of Capt. Joseph J. Kinneary, Ph.D., who had managed to obtain an unlimited master’s license and 15 pilotage endorsements for New York Harbor. Capt. Kinneary has both brown-water and blue-water experience, including piloting loaded oil tankers through a congested harbor in zero visibility. The captain’s story is fully documented in The Good Lord Hates A Coward, “An Account of Life as a Merchant Seaman,” including a journal of a random drug test. It was written by the captain and published by JK Marine. The tale is almost unbelievable, except that it is so well-documented that we believe it.

On October 16, 2002, in Criminal Court Room 453 in New York City, Judge Peter A. Fitzpatrick requested and received Capt. Kinneary’s master’s license No. 035508. The matter involved an action brought by the Coast Guard against Capt. Kinneary, who was charged with misconduct. The Coast Guard sought revocation or suspension of his license. That sets the scene.

Now we fade to the cause of the action. Capt. Kinneary was unfortunate enough to have a psychological disorder known as shy bladder syndrome, which prevented urination during random drug tests. When his attempts to comply failed time after time, he was not allowed to substitute results from blood or saliva tests, which are permissible under the Coast Guard regulations. The only infraction we can discover is that during one of the many test attempts, when the subject could not produce the full amount of specimen required, he simply weakened and added warm tap water to the container.

We note here that Capt. Kinneary sought and made use of legal counsel. He had also the testimony of physicians and shipmates. For whatever reason, some of those in the chain of Coast Guard misfits who hounded him couldn’t accept the fact that he had never taken drugs in his life. He simply had no desire to.

Despite the captain’s efforts over and over again to comply with the random drug test, he was ultimately found guilty of not complying. If this charade weren’t so serious it would be funny. The testimony brought to light that the company handling the blood test had let the watered specimen pass through unchallenged for quite some time. It was serious enough to relieve the company of its contract.

During his lengthy ordeal, Capt. Kinneary was unable to work much of the time. Ultimately, he lost his license and was unable to work at all. Also during his ordeal, he came to believe that the Coast Guard investigators were suffering with some sort of disorder he called Small People With Large Power Syndrome (SPWLPS).

Well, we have run across SPWLPS before, almost in every walk of life—particularly at various levels of local, state and federal government. And, unfortunately, we have run into it in the Coast Guard. But isn’t it sad? Isn’t it sad that a captain with years of experience, a captain who used his spare time to gain a doctorate, a captain who has exactly the kind of experience the marine industry needs, is ousted because some Coast Guard “bureaucrats” with SPWLPS needed to show him who was boss?

This case is fully documented. It has been written up in newspapers. We invite the Coast Guard to explain why this captain was treated as he was. If the charges in his book are inaccurate, we’d like to know about it. We’d like to know because there are hundreds of rivermen who are trying to decide whether working on the river is worth the effort and whether they, too, can be given the bum’s rush. There are hundreds of rivermen who feel just as Capt. Kinneary feels.

In Congress there is currently an effort to produce a Water Resources Development Act that will satisfy the desires of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It is safe to say that over a period of several years, the cost to bring the issue to this point has been in the millions of dollars. But of what use will waterways be if we can’t man the boats that are supposed to ply them?

The Coast Guard needs to wake up. This is not a homeland security issue. It’s a matter of SPWLPS.

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