Article 2 – Ships must kill off the beasties in the ballast water | New Scientist
What is Ballast water?
Ballast water is water carried in ships’ ballast tanks to improve stability, balance and trim. It is taken up or discharged when cargo is unloaded or loaded, or when a ship needs extra stability in foul weather. When ships take on ballast water, plants and animals that live in the ocean are also picked up. Discharging this ballast water releases these organisms into new areas where they can become marine pests. The discharge of water from ballast tanks has been responsible for the introduction of species that cause environmental and economic damage. The International convention for the control and management of ships’ ballast water and sediments in 2004 tries to deal with this environmental problem, by regulating the discharge and charge of ballast water, but this still continues to be a major problem in marine environmental protection.
Why is Ballast water a problem?
Thirty years ago, a ship from North America sailed up the Bosphorus and dumped ballast water containing comb jellyfish from back home. The invader – Mnemiopsis leidyi – went crazy, gobbling up plankton and triggering a catastrophic decline in marine life, including commercial fisheries. At one point, its biomass reached a billion tons, 10 times the world’s annual fish landings. Around a decade later an unknown ship, probably from the Bay of Bengal, discharged ballast water into the coastal waters of Peru, releasing a strain of cholera that contaminated shellfish. People ate the shellfish and the disease spread, killing 12,000 across Latin America.
While ballast water remains indispensable for safe, secure and effectual shipping operations, it has been scientifically researched and proven by expert authorities that ballast water is a significant path for the transfer of harmful and equally damaging aquatic organisms and other pathogens that pose serious ecological, economic and health problems. The movement of vessels around the world requires the intake of ballast water to give them a safe degree of stability. This disposal of water, when it takes place within ports and harbors is classed as a waste product.
The effects of introducing new animal and plants can be almost undetectable, or conversely they can completely dominate and displace native communities. Severe cases of introduced non-native organisms include the European zebra mussel into the North American lakes, causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage due to fouling, and a comb jelly into the Black Sea, causing the near extinction of anchovy and sprat fisheries. The bloom forming algae Gymnodimium, which causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, was introduced into Australian waters from Japan.
How can we mitigate the risk to human and marine life?
At the moment, Ballast water exchange is a requirement. The ballast water exchange is a process by which ships fully discharge the water they carry in their tanks and reload the water a few times during long voyages. This helps reduce the risks, but research indicates that this still affects marine life and can lead to the extinction of several species. A Ballast water treatment system is in no way a mature technology, but it has been implemented by some ship owners to remove and destroy/inactive biological organisms (zooplankton, algae, bacteria) from ballast water. These are expensive systems to install on ships and owners need to spend large amounts of capital investment to meet a need that is not legally required at the moment. I believe that these treatment plants need to become a requirement for every ship, old or new. Owners must be required to install these systems to carry about cross country operations. International marine regulations take a long time to come into effect due to required compliance from all member nations. I believe companies are ethically obliged to install systems for the protection of marine life. This is a serious issue that is slowly affecting all of us and will continue to grow as global trade increases. Developed countries have started taking initiatives to demand stringent treatment methods before ships can enter their coastal waters. Laws enforced by developed countries as well as larger shipping companies taking the initiative to install ballast water treatment systems, will help reduce this threat to marine life.
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