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A line-handler watches the laker Quebecois enter the Eisenhower lock in Massena, N.Y. Congress is weighing legislation that would set ballast water discharge standards for all oceangoing ships to meet by 2011.Invasive species hitch ride on big ships
Ballast water checks can't keep sneaky invaders out
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The job of trying to keep invasive species out of the Great Lakes currently falls to a 10-inch device that looks like a miniature clarinet.
But rather than hitting high notes, the precision instrument known as a refractometer measures the salt content of water inside the ballast tanks that help balance ships as they move cargo on and off.
Since 1997, all oceangoing ships coming into the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System with ballast water must prove to the refractometer's satisfaction that the ballast water is so salty it would kill organisms that could survive in the freshwater of the Great Lakes.
Fenton"The inspectors test 10 percent of the ballast tanks declared on a ship, and look at the logs to see that it took on ballast water from the appropriate waters," explained Carol Fenton, who heads the U.S. end of the inspection process for the U.S. Department of Transportation in Massena, N.Y., where the two U.S. locks in the seaway are located. "If they find that the water isn't compliant, that triggers an inspection of all the tanks."
A ship that fails the test by the U.S. and Canadian inspection team must either go back out to flush out its tanks, or if it enters the seaway, it must pledge not to discharge the water along its journey. On the ship's way out, inspectors recheck the level of the ballast water to ensure it wasn't exchanged for freshwater from the Great Lakes. Ships face stiff fines for violations -- up to $27,000 per day -- though all have complied so far.
For decades, authorities have thought this procedure would stop non-native species from entering the Great Lakes on "salties," as the ships entering the seaway from the Atlantic Ocean are called. But concern has been growing in recent years that even ships that are not covered by the regulations -- those that have pumped as much water as possible from their ballast tanks before entering the seaway -- may still carry non-native species.
How? In the small amount of water and mud left at the bottom.
"Think of it like a straw in a Coke can," said David Reid, a bioinvasive researcher at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. "You can suck nearly all of the Coke out of the can. But a tiny bit remains that the straw can't get. That's what happens on the salties."
Called "nobobs," for "no ballast onboard," these ships make up 90 percent of the oceangoing vessels that come into the Great Lakes. The loophole in the U.S. Coast Guard requirements has meant that invaders have continued to sneak their way into the Great Lakes -- at the rate of one every eight months.
In April, Reid released a blockbuster report detailing the danger posed by nobobs. "There is far more that we don't know than what we do know," Reid said about the challenge invasive species pose.
Reid pointed to work by David Raikow, another bioinvasive researcher at the Ann Arbor lab, who is tackling how to kill non-native species still in the heavily armored egg stage.
Those eggs can be stirred up out of the mud when a ship takes on Great Lakes water as ballast after unloading cargo. At the next port, when the ship takes on cargo and needs to balance by dumping ballast water, the eggs fall to their new homes in the Great Lakes.
Raikow is experimenting with ultraviolet light, heat and biocides to try to destroy the eggs. So far, the results haven't been promising. The mud ends up acting as a protective shield against Raikow's efforts.
In research labs around the globe, scientists and innovators like Reid and Raikow are searching for cheap and dependable ways to kill invasive pests before they move into indefensible waters.
This fall, for example, Fednav, the Canadian giant responsible for half of the commercial ships in the Great Lakes, will test the OceanSaver on its Federal Welland ship, which will be returning home filled with cargo from Europe. The Norwegian-made OceanSaver, which will cost about $800,000, will use filtration, nitrogen and tiny explosive bubbles to try to kill anything living in its ballast water.
"We looked at all types of technology," says Fednav senior vice president Georges Robichon, adding that the biocides the company tried in 2001 and 2002 were ineffective. "We think OceanSaver holds out the best promise. Only time will tell if it works."
A race to create technologies to stop invasive species is heating up after the International Maritime Organization set discharge standards at a conference in London last year.
The idea behind standards is that eventually ships will have technologically proven ways -- such as biocides, oxygen deprivation and filters -- to kill invasive species before ballast water is discharged. All oceangoing ships would be required to carry such technology.
It will take many years before the standards go into effect; 30 of the world's major commercial shipping nations must sign the agreement. But setting standards means that developers competing for the new lucrative market now know what their equipment must accomplish to be approved by the International Maritime Organization.
"There's simply been no technology available," Robichon said. "The world is moving forward positively in this area."
But the slow pace of research and getting an agreement signed means that the Great Lakes continue to be vulnerable. Rather than waiting, environmentalists are urging the U.S. Coast Guard to set new requirements for nobobs entering the Great Lakes.
Environmentalists want the Coast Guard to require nobobs to do a procedure known as "swish and spit." Before they reach the seaway, nobobs would be required to take some salty water into their ballast tanks and then discharge it, increasing chances of killing any potential stowaway invaders. The Coast Guard is currently considering the option.
"This wouldn't require new, expensive technology," said Jennifer Nalbone, an invasive species expert at Great Lakes United, a bi-national environmental group. "We'd like to see the Coast Guard do an emergency rule for the 2006 season requiring nobobs to flush out their tanks."
Sharing Nalbone's outrage over the nobob loophole, Gov. Jennifer Granholm in June signed a law, effective in 2007, that will require all ships wanting to use Michigan ports to prove they have no invasive species in any water they want to discharge in Michigan-controlled areas of the Great Lakes. While the specifics of how ships will prove this remain to be worked out, environmentalists hope Michigan's tough rules will speed up the development and use of technology to combat invasive species.
Meanwhile, Congress is weighing legislation that would set ballast water discharge standards for all oceangoing ships to meet by 2011.
"The changes in the Great Lakes happening because of invasive species right now are so serious that our kids and grandkids won't have the chance we have today to stop this problem," said Nalbone. "It's our responsibility, and we are dropping the ball big time."
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The Detroit News.
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