Groups call for national law regulating ballast water discharge

Groups call for national law regulating ballast water discharge An alliance of U.S. and international shipping organizations is circulating a letter to Congress calling for national standards for treating ballast water rather than a patchwork of state laws.
   The American Waterways Operators Chamber of Shipping of America, Cruise Line Industry Association, INTERTANKO, Lake Carriers’ Association, and World Shipping Council call for passage of S. 178, the Ballast Water Management Act of 2007.
   “As ships load and unload their various cargoes at ports, they need to also take on and discharge ballast water to ensure vessel stability, trim and safety. The water pumped onboard to become ballast, however, may contain various aquatic species from that harbor. Many of these are unlikely to survive the voyage or survive in a new environment; however, when that ballast water is discharged at a subsequent port, there is a known risk that they might establish a reproductive population in the new environment” the letter explains.
   To prevent unintentional transportation of invasive marine species in ballast water, shipping companies today now engage in what is called “mid-ocean ballast water exchange,” where they discharge their ballast water taken on in port environments and replace it with mid-ocean water that poses a lower environmental risk. The groups say this process is roughly 95 percent effective at flushing out coastal ballast water from a ship’s tanks.
   “To make further progress on this complicated challenge will require the installation of technology on vessels to treat ballast water, without making the treated water harmful to the ship or to the environment when discharged,” the groups say.
   They contend S. 1578 would establish a comprehensive and effective approach to the issue of addressing the risk of ballast water discharges, including a process to establish an effective national treatment technology standard.
   The groups say a competing approach to addressing the problem using the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting mechanism under the Clean Water Act (CWA) would be burdensome to the shipping industry.
   That’s because they point out that ships often visit ports in more than one state, and “could be subjected to different permit requirements in each state that they visit. To the extent that different states impose different discharge standards and/or require different treatment technologies to be employed, vessels will be unable to comply with these multiple standards.”
   “The United States needs a single standard for vessels to meet so that they can install the necessary treatment technology and know that it will be acceptable in whatever U.S. port they call. Many vessels have no idea which U.S. port they will be calling when they are built,” the letter notes.
   It said: “Insistence on regulating ballast water under the NPDES program will have a substantial negative impact on international trade. It could cause ports to be dropped from vessel schedules. It would create confusion regarding what technology is required to serve U.S. commerce. It will create confusion and disincentives for those companies trying to develop ballast water treatment technologies — companies that need to have an assurance of what treatment standard their product needs to meet.”
   And the group said reliance on the Clean Water Act approach to regulating ballast water discharge “is incompatible with the emerging international legal regime regulating ballast water” while S. 1578 is consistent with a IMO treaty, the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments.
   In September, Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox sent a joint letter with his counterparts from five other states — Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — urging the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to oppose S. 1578.
   They said if the bill passed it would block states from imposing tougher ballast water treatment requirements, strip EPA of authority to regulate ballast water discharges, and delay enforcing new federal treatment standards.
   “The Great Lakes are our most precious natural resources and aquatic nuisance species are among the most serious threats to their health,” Cox said. “The EPA needs to enforce the Clean Water Act and Michigan’s ability to protect the Great Lakes should not be preempted.”
   Michigan recently adopted a law that requires oceangoing vessels operating in Michigan ports to obtain state permits to ensure that they either avoid ballast discharges or properly treat the ballast before it is discharged.
   Cox successfully defended a lawsuit filed by shipping companies that tried to block the Michigan law. On Aug. 15, U.S. District Judge John Feikens granted Cox’s request to dismiss the suit and upheld the constitutionality of the state law. ' Chris Dupin