New York ballast decision may help control invasive species throughout the Great Lakes

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 2, 2009

Environmental groups praise a New York Supreme Court justice’s recent decision to uphold that state’s new ballast water treatment requirements, and the shippers say that the standard is just too high.

But they both agree on one thing: There should be some federal action taken to regulate ballast water.

Ballast water is carried in ships to provide stability. It is taken on when a ship unloads cargo and is discharged when it is loaded up again. It has been blamed for carrying from foreign ports many of the invasive plants and animals altering the Great Lakes ecosystem.

“There has been a vacuum of federal leadership on effective ballast regulation,” said Jennifer Nalbone, director of navigation and invasive species for Great Lakes United, an international organization dedicated to preserving the Great Lakes. “The state effort is absolutely critical, because we just don’t know what’s going to happen on the federal level.”

In the Great Lakes region, New York and Michigan currently have their own ballast regulations. Minnesota and Wisconsin are discussing possible regulation.

“When you have a hodgepodge of requirements, nobody knows what to do,” said Glen Nekvasil, vice president of corporate communication for the Lake Carriers’ Association, a trade association representing U.S-Flag vessel operators on the Great Lakes.

Despite a lack of federal involvement, New York’s regulation that was upheld Friday will have significant effects on all of the Great Lakes. Ocean-going vessels must pass through New York’s waters to get into the Great Lakes, said Roger Eberhardt, environmental quality specialist in Michigan’s Office of the Great Lakes.

Still, shippers prefer consistent federal legislation to let manufacturers of ballast treatment systems know what they have to shoot for, because now they are not certain which requirement shippers want them to meet, Nekvasil said.

“We’re fine with that, as long as the consistency is at the highest level,” Nalbone said.

A new invasive species is discovered about every 28 weeks, and the primary way they enter the Great Lakes is through ballast water, said Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center. And since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, more than 60 percent of the nonnative species in the Great Lakes have come from ballast water.

“If we could slam the door on invasive species from foreign ships, it would be a monumental step forward,” he said. “For too long, the status quo has been to let invasive species come in.”

A study by Notre Dame University found that the damage from invasive species costs at least $200 million each year in lost fishing opportunities and increased clean-up costs, Lubetkin said.

New York’s regulation goes into effect in 2012. Although it will impact ships traveling through the St. Lawrence Seaway, it is hard to predict the effects it will have on the Great Lakes’ two major world ports, Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wisc., Eberhardt said.

Ships coming through the Chicago ship canal could potentially bring in invasive species from the Mississippi River basin, Eberhardt said. Boats that stay on the Great Lakes could transport invasive species around the lakes, he said.

“It’s too early to say that ports like Duluth and Superior are protected by this regulation, … but it’s certainly an important step,” Eberhardt said.

But Nekvasil said that the regulation should make a distinction between ocean-going vessels and lake vessels, because the ballast water of ships that stay in the Great Lakes only contains what is already there.

“The Great Lakes are interconnected,” Nekvasil said. “Something that is in Lake Superior can swim down to Lake Erie out of it’s own free will.”

Some of the ships that stay on the Great Lakes have up to 18 different ballast systems, which would be a tremendous expense for ships that are not introducing invasive species, he said.

“It’s very simple,” Nekvasil said. “They have set the standards so high, that come 2012, there aren’t going to be any ships in New York waters.”