The Obama administration’s top environmental official indicated Tuesday that she will consider tougher rules to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species that hitch rides into the region aboard oceangoing vessels.
Newly appointed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said she will take a fresh look at her agency’s new policy that requires oceangoing vessels to flush their ship-steadying ballast tanks in mid-ocean to expel any unwanted organisms.
The EPA ordered the flushing late last year after losing a lawsuit over its long-standing policy to exempt ballast discharges from provisions in the Clean Water Act. But the conservationists who sued the EPA say that merely flushing ballast tanks does not go far enough to protect the Great Lakes from the next zebra mussel. They want the agency to force ship owners to install ballast treatment systems that will go much further toward killing unwanted organisms.