SPECIALCHICAGOHIRINGREPORTFind out where the jobs areBusiness, Pages 8-9

THE BEST& WORSTNEW TVSHOWS A+E

Left: Zooey Deschanel of ‘New Girl’; above: Rachael Taylor,

Minka Kelly and Annie Ilonzeh of ‘Charlie’s Angels’

It’s not easy going public.Since Groupon Inc. statedits intentions, it has had toexplain, and then down-play, part of its accountingmethodology. It had to askpotential investors to dis-count some boastful projec-tions. A top executive leftafter five months. Rookiemistakes or indicative ofbigger issues with its man-agement team? Business

Groupon’s IPOpush a trickybalancing act

October 2, 2011

Questions? Call 1-800-Tribune Breaking news at chicagotribune.comSunday

D Final

$1.99 city and suburbs, $3.00 elsewhere165th year No. 275 © Chicago Tribune

Tavi Gevinson wasted notime on the massive slice ofchocolate cake with marsh-mallow and ice cream mak-ing its way from her fork to

her mouth.The 15-year-old had en-

dured a grueling month,and not just because of thelaunch of her sophomoreyear of high school, with itsdemanding class schedule,awkward homecomingdance and other adolescentpressures.

A small girl with bigambition, she also had sur-vived the launch of Rookie,

her online magazine forteenage girls, which alreadyhas generated millions ofpage views, close to600,000 unique visits andmultiple advertisers sincegoing live on Labor Day.

The publication — and itsimmediate popularity —marks a major turning pointfor the Oak Park teen whoburst onto the internationalfashion scene in 2009 with a

style blog penned from hersuburban bedroom and apenchant for eccentric out-fits, once likened to the lookof a grandmother on Ec-stasy.

When she started ap-pearing in the front row ofFashion Week and rubbingshoulders with Gwen Stef-ani and other stars, naysay-Tavi Gevinson, 15, has

won the attention of big

shots and ordinary girls.

STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE

Tavi’s stylish star is growing brighterWith new website,teen is as Sassy asshe wants to be By Megan TwoheyTribune reporter

Please turn to Page 12

Illinois capped its come-back in the final seconds tobeat the Wildcats 38-35 andremain undefeated at 5-0.

BEARS-PANTHERS: RonRivera’s homecoming putspressure on Lovie Smith,David Haugh writes.Chicago Sports

Illini rally stunsNorthwestern

An emergency order tovacate was issued.

And just like that, out of theblue of a summer morning,the Harrises had lost theirhome and what they hadthought was their goodstanding among theirneighbors.

“I never seen so much hatebuild up in one minute,”

R.J. Harris says.“For what?”

Mary

Schmich,

Page 4

Familyshatteredafter raid,eviction

MANITOWOC, Wis. — Built inthe 1950s for the brawny task offerrying railroad cars, the last coal-burning steamship on the GreatLakes is billed today as a nostalgicvacation shortcut between Wiscon-sin and Michigan.

But every day it sails between thisold shipbuilding port and Luding-

ton, Mich., the Badger dumpsnearly 4 tons of coal ash into LakeMichigan — waste concentratedwith arsenic, lead, mercury andother toxic metals. During itsspring-to-fall season, federal re-cords show, the amount far exceedsthe coal, iron and limestone wastejettisoned by all 125 other big shipson the Great Lakes combined.

Decades into efforts to clean upthe world’s largest source of freshsurface water, the Badger’s routinedumping is so unusual that, in 2008,the U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency gave its owners four years tofind a solution. At the time, theyvowed to either overhaul the agingcoal burner or store the ash for safedisposal onshore.

Ferry allowed to dumptons of coal ash in lake

The coal-powered SS Badger pulls out of Ludington, Mich., as it heads on its four-hour trip across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, Wis.

DENISE STOCKER/PHOTO FOR THE TRIBUNE

Officials seeking reprieve for steamship cite jobs, tourism dollars

By Michael HawthorneTribune reporter

Please turn to Page 17

509The number oftons of coal ashthe SS Badgerreleases into Lake Michiganeach year

TRIBUNE WATCHDOG

Did the United States havethe right to kill Anwaral-Awlaki, the cleric whowas among two Americancitizens slain in a CIA-leddrone attack Friday inYemen? Human rightsadvocates and legal schol-ars are divided, with theanswer hinging on whetherthe war against al-Qaida isdefined as an armed con-flict or an internationalpolice action. Page 29

CIA strike on U.S.citizens in Yemen stirs legal debate

Chicago Weather Center: Complete forecast in Nation & World, Page 39Tom Skilling’s forecast High 67 Low 42

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17B Chicago Tribune | Section 1 | Sunday, October 2, 2011

As the last season beforethe EPA’s deadline comes toan end, the owners insteadare seeking an exemptionfrom the federal Clean Wa-ter Act that would delay afix until at least 2017.

By then, the Badger’sowners and backers say, the410-foot ferry might be fu-eled by cleaner-burningnatural gas, a first for a U.S.ship that big. They say suchan upgrade would eliminatethe ship’s noxious coalsmoke and murky dis-charges, making it the“greenest” commercial ves-sel on the Great Lakes.

If the EPA allows the ashdumping to continue, it willbe the Badger’s latest passfrom environmental lawsthat other ships, including acompeting car ferry thatruns between Milwaukeeand Muskegon, Mich., havecomplied with for years.

To buy more time for theBadger’s two massive steamengines, supporters haveorganized a public relationscampaign that casts the shipas a small-town operationstruggling to preserve amaritime icon. They por-tray the EPA as overzealousbureaucrats threatening250 full-time and seasonaljobs and millions of tourismdollars in two Midwest cit-ies hit hard by manufactur-ing plant closings and cut-backs.

Local officials in Mani-towoc and Ludington alsoare tapping into Republicanefforts in Congress to scut-tle environmental regula-tions as they lobby lawmak-ers to secure another re-prieve for the Badger.

“The EPA should pick onbigger fish than this,” saidLudington Mayor JohnHenderson. “There are a lotof other environmental is-sues that deserve more at-tention than a historic ferrythat happens to dump a fewpounds of ash into the lake.”

Based on the Badger’s134-day operating schedule,the ship discharges about509 tons of coal ash into thewater each year. By con-trast, freighters that ply allfive Great Lakes collectivelydump about 89 tons of coal,limestone and iron wasteinto the lake annually, ac-cording to Coast Guard re-cords.

Coal ash pollution drewnational attention in 2008after a holding pond rup-tured at a Kingston, Tenn.,power plant and fouled anOhio River tributary. Sincethen, the EPA has beenmulling more stringentrules to ensure safe disposalof the toxic waste, whichthe agency says poses “sig-nificant public health con-cerns.”

A spokeswoman in theEPA’s Chicago office saidthe agency has been dis-cussing a new permit withthe Badger’s owners. Nodecisions have been made.

Officials with the LakeMichigan Car Ferry Service,the company that owns theBadger, declined to be inter-viewed but said in an emailresponse to questions thatthey had spent $250,000studying ways to complywith the Clean Water Act.

“We wish every elementof our lives could be totallygreen,” the company wrotein one of its newsletters.“There are no off-the-shelfsolutions, and the EPA rec-ognized that there was nopractical way to eliminatethe discharge immediately.”In other public statements,company officials have saidthe ship’s coal ash is “asharmless as sand.”

“Finding a safe, feasibleand environmentally-friendly option with naturalgas is very important to ourcompany,” Lynda Matson,the Badger’s vice presidentfor customer service andmarketing, said in a recentupdate posted on the SSBadger website.

Two things stand outwhen riding on the Badger:It is considerably largerthan other passenger shipson Lake Michigan — on arecent afternoon one vehi-cle on board was a wide-load tractor-trailer carryingsilo-sized tanks for Bell’sBrewery in Kalamazoo,Mich. — and its thick, blacksmoke is full of ash flakesthat settle on the deck.

During the four-hourcruise, crew members sell

snacks, show movies andorganize bingo games.Many passengers readbooks on the ferry’s glass-enclosed aft deck amid thedull rumble of its 7,000-horsepower engines.

“I would hate to lose theconvenience of travel andthe thrill of days gone by,”said Barbara Bennett, a re-tired autoworker who livespart time in Ludington. “It’sa piece of history, but theyshould make it a cleanership.”

The Badger’s pollution isa byproduct of technologythat already was becomingobsolete when the ferry wasbuilt. By the time it startedcarrying freight cars for theChesapeake and Ohio Rail-way in 1953, dozens of othercoal-burning ships were be-ing retired or converted tocleaner-burning diesel fuel.

Newspaper clippingsdating to the mid-1960sshow the Badger’s air andwater pollution became afestering problem well be-fore the current anti-EPAfervor in Washington.

People frequently com-plained about coal smokewafting into Manitowocand Ludington and “black,viscous liquid” being dis-charged into the water. Gay-lord Nelson, the late Wis-consin senator whofounded Earth Day in 1970,pushed to eliminate shippollution on the lakes, fo-cusing his efforts in part onthe Badger.

When the C&O moved toabandon its Lake Michiganferries in the late 1970s,railroad officials testifiedthat traffic had declined somuch that the operations nolonger were profitable.Moreover, they said, coalsmoke from the ships vio-lated federal and state airquality laws and the com-pany had decided it wouldcost too much to installpollution controls.

Investors who saved theBadger from the scrap yardin the 1980s won specialexemptions from Michiganand Wisconsin air qualitylaws that kept the ferry’scoal smoke legal whileother polluters cleaned up.The current owners laterrejected state aid to convertthe Badger to diesel, tellingthe Ludington Daily Newsin 2001 that they wanted torun the business “withoutgovernmental assistance.”

More recently, the Bad-ger’s owners have beencompeting with the diesel-powered Lake Express ferryfor business and govern-ment help. The Badger op-posed $17.5 million in fed-eral loan guarantees thatkick-started the Milwau-kee-to-Muskegon service in2004; last year, the LakeExpress lobbied against a$14 million federal stimulusgrant the Badger soughtunsuccessfully to covert theolder ship to diesel.

The Badger’s supporterssuggest the latest plan toconvert to natural gas is theonly way to preserve theferry’s role in promotingtourism around Manitowocand Ludington. Companyofficials commissioned a

study that estimated theship draws about $35 mil-lion a year to both commu-nities.

Local businesses havechipped in to raise aware-ness about the debate. InLudington, the JamesportBrewing Co. started servingBadger Brown ale duringthe summer at its down-town pub, with a dollarfrom every pint sold do-nated to the S.O.S. Badgercampaign.

“I tell people it’s like oneof our factories: The Badgermeans jobs and economicdevelopment,” said Mani-towoc Mayor Justin Nick-els. “The owners are tryingto convert to somethingcleaner, but it’s not some-thing that can happen over-night.”

However, questions re-main about the proposednew fuel source, as naturalgas traditionally hasn’t beenused to power ships. Andcritics say the Badger’sowners already have hadplenty of time to fix itspollution problems.

“All of the other ferriesand ships that ply the GreatLakes have found ways tocomply with our modernenvironmental laws,” saidLyman Welch, water qualityprogram manager for theAlliance for the GreatLakes. “This is a glaringexception.”

mhawthorne@tribune.comTwitter @scribeguy

Ferry allowed to dumptons of coal ash in lakeContinued from Page 1 The SS Badger

Built: 1952

Length: 410 feet, 6 inches

Height: 106 feet, 9 inches

Weight: 6,650 tons displacement

Propellers: Two cast steel, 4-blade propellers, 13 feet 10 inches in diameter

Engines: Two Skinner Unaflow four-cylinder steam engines rated at 3,500 horsepower each (7,000 horsepower total)

Boilers: Four coal-burning

Average speed: 18 miles per hour (15.6 knots)

Crew: About 60

Capacity: 600 passen-gers and 180 vehicles

Crossings: About 450 between late May and early October

Crossing time: Four hours over 60 miles

SOURCE: Lake Michigan Carferry

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