Great Lakes Echo (http://greatlakesecho.org/tag/ballast/)
Foreign plants and animals that threaten the Great Lakes ecology could soon be blown apart by ultrasound.
A new device is designed to kill such invasive species lurking in the ballast tanks of ships by blasting them with sound.
The U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved a budget bill amendment that would discourage states from regulating ballast water more strongly than the federal rule.
States that did would lose funding from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Several years after Michigan and other Great Lakes states imposed tougher regulations on ships, there’s still a call by environmental groups, biologists and shippers for federal rules.
State standards for ballast developed piecemeal, and Carl Lindquist, the executive director of the Superior Watershed Partnership and Land Trust based in Marquette, said they were a step in the right direction. But ballast water is still carrying invasive species, he said.
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.