FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AQUATIC NUISANCE SPECIES FROM BALLAST WATER ON THE GREAT LAKES

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1 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AQUATIC NUISANCE SPECIES FROM BALLAST WATER ON THE GREAT LAKES I. What is ballast? Ballast is water that is taken aboard a vessel to stabilize it at sea for a variety of reasons, including: To diminish hull stress - properly distributed ballast helps to counteract the forces on an empty or partially loaded vessel. To provide proper stability and trim. Trim is the forward and after angle of a vessel; stabilization is the left to right control or side to side control of a vessel. To aid in propulsion efficiency (ballast water controls the submergence level of the propeller and the bow thruster and thus aids in controlling propulsion). To aid in maneuverability: for example by bringing on ballast it lowers a vessel in the water, thus submerging the rudder and reducing freeboard exposed to winds coming abeam of the vessel at sea; adjusting trim aids in maneuverability. To compensate for the consumption of fuel and potable water To adjust draft (draft is the depth of the vessel in the water and requires adjustment based on harbor depth, bridge clearances, etc.) To provide increased comfort at sea under operating conditions ballast may be taken aboard to reduce the roll of a vessel. II. What kind of water is ballast water? Ballast water may be fresh (.5 ppt or less dissolved salts), brackish (salt levels ranging from.5 to 30 ppt) or salt (30 ppt or greater). Most ballast water contains living organisms and varying amounts of dissolved and suspended organic material. III. How do you get ballast water on and off a ship? Ballast water is pumped aboard a vessel from several feet below the waterline with large pumps. The same pumps that are used to take on ballast are also used to discharge ballast. On a typical cargo ship that enters the Seaway a ballast pump is the largest pump onboard. IV. How much ballast is on a ship? Most of the vessels that come through the Seaway have a capacity of between 2.0 and 4.0 million gallons of ballast water. The ballast pump capacity of these vessels range between 4,400 and 8,800 gpm. 1

2 V. How does ballast water pose an environmental threat? There are two main sources of commercial shipping on the Great Lakes the international sector that enters the Great Lakes from the Seaway and the domestic carriers that operate exclusively within the Great Lakes. Ballast water discharged from international ships poses an environmental threat due to the aquatic nonindigenous species (ANS) contained within the ballast water. The nonindigenous organisms within the ballast water when released have the opportunity to propagate and ultimately overwhelm the native species, thereby disrupting the Great Lake s delicate ecosystem. Domestic carriers while not responsible for bringing organisms into the lakes can spread them throughout the system. VI. What harm do these nonindigenous aquatic species cause? In the Great Lakes alone, 139 nonindigenous aquatic species have become established since the early 1800 s resulting primarily from ship related introductions (from ballast water discharges), removal of physical barriers with the building of canals, transfer by recreational watercraft and accidental releases from aquaculuture, bait, aquarium trade and horticultural activities. Under the right conditions, non-native populations can dramatically increase, displacing native species, reducing biodiversity and limiting water use activities. Once a species is established it is difficult to manage and nearly impossible to eliminate. The zebra mussel is perhaps one of the more infamous aquatic nuisance species known to have arrived in ship s ballast into the Great Lakes; due to its infestation Great Lakes users spend tens of millions of dollars on zebra mussel control every year. In addition, the zebra mussel s rapid reproduction coupled with consumption of microscopic plants and animals affect the aquatic food web and place valuable commercial and sports fisheries at risk. VII. What is being done to control the entry of aquatic nuisance species from ballast water into the Great Lakes? The Non-indigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act established mandatory ballast water exchange requirements for vessels entering the Great Lakes and Upper Hudson River after operating outside of the U. S. Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ. The implementing regulations for the Great Lakes Ecosystem were completed in When reauthorized and amended in 1996 as the National Invasive Species Act, this law extended ballast water management to the remainder of U.S. waters. The key difference is that outside of the Great Lakes Ecosystem, ballast water management actions are voluntary. VIII. What happens during a ballast water exchange? During an exchange, the ballast water in the vessel is exchanged for open ocean salt water. The scientific theory behind exchange is that fresh water environment is inhospitable for most oceanic organisms discharged into the Great Lakes. There are two operational approaches to exchange, the first option is to pump out a tank until it is empty 2

3 and then refill it with ocean water. The second option is to flush out the tanks by bringing in ocean water until sufficient water has been changed. IX. Who checks to ensure these vessels obey the law? U.S. Coast Guard personnel stationed at Massena, NY, examine all vessels that arrive with ballast to ensure they are in compliance. The Coast Guard personnel examine the ship s logbook, check charts and then test the salinity of the ballast water. Ballast water salinity must be at least 30 ppt. If the ballast water falls below 30 ppt, the Boarding Officer will issue the vessel Captain a retention letter requiring the vessel to retain all non-compliant ballast water on board throughout its voyage on the Great Lakes. X. What happens after a retention letter is issued to a vessel Captain? The retention letter specifically informs the Captain what tanks failed to comply. It also notifies the Captain of the possible consequences of discharging non-compliant ballast water into the Great Lakes, which include civil or criminal penalties. Once the Coast Guard issues a ballast water retention letter, the vessel's Great Lakes voyage will be followed. The Coast Guard will board the vessel again and the ballast water will be retested and compared to the original results. Provided the salinities and capacities are the same no further Coast Guard action will be taken. No vessel operator has ever violated a Coast Guard ballast water retention letter. XI. What more is the Coast Guard doing to protect the Great Lakes from aquatic nuisance species coming from ballast water? The Coast Guard is focusing on many activities to enhance our ability to protect the Great Lakes from ANS. The following are some of the more noteworthy projects: (1) Investigating a Variety of Potential Technologies A number of processes remain under investigation worldwide by government, industry, academic and non-governmental interests. Included in this list are filtration, hydrocyclonic separation, and chemical and physical biocides (i.e. ozone, chlorine, ultraviolet radiation, heat treatment, and vacuum). However, none of these have received more than preliminary evaluation in shipboard applications. A Coast Guard sponsored project at the University of Miami is testing and evaluating two general approaches to ballast water treatment, one using filtration and ultraviolet light and the other using hydrocyclonic separation and ultraviolet light. This research is basic in nature and conducted under controlled and similar conditions of flow rate, water quality, and test organisms. After reviewing the first year's results, the project's focus in 2002 was on filtration and ultraviolet light. A final report on this work is expected in A final report on this work is expected in Preliminary results of the project were presented at the 12 th Annual International Invasive Species Conference in Windsor, Canada. 3

4 (2) No Ballast On Board Additional research efforts include the more specific issue of vessels which declare No Ballast on Board (NOBOB), but which yet often contain significant quantities of unpumpable residual water and accumulated sediment that contain nonindigenous organisms. Of particular interest is the effectiveness of operational procedures that could be performed by vessel operators in the near term to reduce the amount of sediments entering U.S. and Great Lakes waters as ballast residuals. The Coast Guard is collaborating with academic and government researchers, and the shipping industry on studies that characterize the temporal and spatial patterns of NOBOB vessels, the amount and distribution of water and sediment carried in their ballast tanks, and the composition of the biological communities they carry. It is anticipated that this work will lay the groundwork for evaluating the effectiveness of operational ballast water management practices aimed at minimizing sediment load and possible ANS movements. This project is being conducted through the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. Preliminary work was performed this past fall and winter. The shipboard fieldwork began at the end of the Great Lakes Ice Season and continues. (3) Standard for Technology Evaluation A key hurdle to developing accepted ballast water treatment technologies is the absence of a standard by which proposed technologies can be evaluated. The Coast Guard is leading a coordinated effort involving a wide range of stakeholders to develop such a standard, and this remains a priority for A notice requesting public comment on four possible approaches to setting standards for ballast water treatment, as well as answers to several specific questions related to setting, implementing, and enforcing such standards was published in the Federal Register on 1 May 2001 and the comment period closed on 2 July An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a treatment standard, which incorporates the public comments, as well as domestic and international developments over the past 2 years, was published in the Federal Register on 4 March 2002, and the public comment period closed on 3 June Barring any additional or unforeseen regulatory activities, the Coast Guard anticipates that it will have a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ready for Departmental and Interdepartmental review by Winter of 2003 and a Final Rule in the Fall of (4) Approval Program for Experimental Treatment Systems The Coast Guard is also in the process of developing a program that it hopes will provide the necessary incentives for ship owners and operators to actively participate in projects testing ballast water treatment technologies. The details are being worked out, but are expected to include the conditional advance approval of experimentally installed systems with respect to future treatment standards. To prevent misuse of this approval, the 4

5 program will contain safeguards to insure that the proposed studies have a reasonable chance of being as effective as ballast water exchange and are conducted according to well-established principles of experimental design and analysis. The Coast Guard anticipated having an Interim Rule ready for Departmental and Interdepartmental review by Spring One step that may cause this date to slip is the need to provide states with Coastal Zone Management Act Plans an opportunity to review the Coast Guard's consistency determination prior to publishing the Interim Rule. (5) Technology Verification The Coast Guard has established a formal engineering test program with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) program. This alliance is designed to accelerate the development and commercialization of ballast water treatment technologies through third party verification and reporting of performance. Some of the anticipated products of this collaboration are protocols for testing, verifying and reporting on ballast water treatment technologies. The most recent meeting of the Ballast Water Stakeholder Advisory Group took place on June 18, This group assists in identifying the direction of the ETV efforts, and serves as conduits between the organizations they represent and the ETV program. A separate technical panel has been formed to develop the protocols, drafts of which should be available for distribution in early NSF International of Ann Arbor, MI, is the ETV partner organization for this effort, which currently is part of the Source Water Protection Technologies Pilot. More information on ETV, the pilot and NSF International is available at the ETV website: (6) Verification of Mid-Ocean Exchange To support future enforcement efforts, the Coast Guard R&D Center is coordinating the development of an improved method for verifying that ballast water in a vessel was in fact taken on in mid-ocean. To establish the proof of concept, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center convened a panel of experts on the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of seawater. This group identified a set of parameters (e.g. trace metals, fluorescence of dissolved organic material and radium isotopes), that taken together, may be able to discriminate better between mid-ocean and coastal water than the salinity measurement currently used by port state control officers. Follow on testing of these parameters is being done by Smithsonian scientists, as well as researchers at Portland State University as part of the Columbia River ANS Initiative. The Coast Guard is exploring opportunities for additional testing of the verification method in conjunction with other ballast water management research by scientists in New Zealand and Singapore. 5

6 (7) Harmonization of Canadian voluntary ballast water rules with mandatory U.S regulations on the Great Lakes. Currently the Canadian government has a voluntary ballast water exchange program for vessels that enter the Great Lakes while the U.S. regime is mandatory. The difference between U.S. and Canadian regulatory regimes has been a point of concern for many that seek a unified approach to ballast water management on the Great Lakes. The ultimate goal is to have the same mandatory regime in place in Canada for the Great Lakes as currently exists in the U.S. as soon as possible. XII. Where could I get more information on ballast water and aquatic nuisance species on the Great Lakes? Please feel free to contact Commander Michael Gardiner of the U.S. Coast Guard s Ninth District office at or by at mgardiner@d9.uscg.mil if you have additional questions about ANS on the Great Lakes or the Coast Guard s mandatory ballast water exchange program. In addition, web site at provides perhaps the most comprehensive overview of the topic of Great Lakes nuisance species and also offers links to numerous other web sites. Questions regarding the Coast Guard s overall national ANS/ballast water management program can be directed to LT Keith Donohue at Coast Guard Headquarters at , or by at kdonohue@comdt.uscg.mil. 6