The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1158827597245180.xml&coll=2
Experts gather to make waves about future of Great Lakes
Thursday, September 21, 2006
John C. Kuehner
Plain Dealer Reporter
The Lake Erie shoreline has a crunch to it.
With each step, you will step on bits and pieces of zebra and quagga mussel shells.
Mounds of crushed shells are a reminder of how widespread an impact the fingernail-size mollusks have had on the Great Lakes since they were discovered in the late 1980s.
Natives of Ukraine and Asia, zebra and quagga mussels are two of at least 182 known aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes, many that hitchhiked a ride here in ballast water of oceangoing ships.
Two conferences in Cleveland, one opening Friday and the other Wednesday, will look at the health of the Great Lakes and ways to control invasive species.
"The Great Lakes are collapsing and a big reason is the invasion of aquatic invasive, non-native species," said Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes Natural Resource Center. "Aquatic invasive species is the issue in the Great Lakes. It's public enemy No. 1."
Lubetkin will speak at the second annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference at the Crowne Plaza Cleveland City Centre hotel this week. The three-day seminar will focus on restoring the health of the Great Lakes.
The U.S. Coast Guard will host a conference Wednesday about the latest research, technology and regulations aimed at stopping non-native critters from arriving here.
Since 1970, one new invasive species is discovered in the Great Lakes about every 28 weeks, according to Anthony Ricciardi of the Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montreal.
It's not just a Great Lakes problem. Invasive species are in all ports, from the Chesapeake Bay to Shanghai, and cause an estimated $137 billion in damage annually.
"Through history, we've been moving organisms around," said Mark Minton, an ecologist with the National Ballast Information Clearinghouse. "But only in more recent times have we become concerned about the movement of non-indigenous species."
The Great Lakes are overrun due mostly to ship ballast water.
Eighty species have been found in the Great Lakes since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, which allowed oceangoing ships to reach Great Lakes ports. Fifty-two of those - or 65 percent - can be traced to ballast water, according to Ricciardi.
Freighters use ballast water to balance the ship. But their tanks hold residual water, mud and thousands of organisms. As freighters load and unload cargo at ports, they pump water in and out of ballast tanks, which releases any organisms into local harbors.
As zebra mussels spread, Congress authorized the U.S. Coast Guard under the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 to set up voluntary guidelines for ships to follow to prevent ballast water from contaminating ports.
Regulations required vessels to exchange ballast while in the ocean, seal it on board or treat it to kill organisms, said Bivan Patnaik, regulatory coordinator with the Coast Guard.
But the Coast Guard found shippers were not following the voluntary guidelines.
So now the Coast Guard is making them mandatory.
Three years ago the Coast Guard started to evaluate the environmental impact of setting a mandatory national ballast water discharge standard. The ballast water must be clean so when it's released into port waters, it does not pollute them or hold any organisms.
What's being tested are different types of on-ship treatment systems that remove organisms from ballast water in a number of ways, such as filtering, use of biocides and oxygen removal.
Last year, Michigan lawmakers adopted strict measures that require ballast water to be treated before it's released. Six of the other eight Great Lakes states have introduced similar laws, but so far no other state has adopted it.
Ohio and Pennsylvania have not introduced legislation.
Two years ago, the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations adopted ballast water regulations, accelerating the development of technology, said Georges Robichon, senior vice president of Fednav Ltd. of Montreal, which is the largest operator of oceangoing ships on the Great Lakes.
Fednav is testing a prototype system on its ship the Federal Welland.
He expects a treatment system to be approved in about a year.
"There's no simple fix to these things," he said. "You can't just throw chlorine in. It's not that simple and it does not work."
But as each day passes, the potential rises for another pest to enter the Great Lakes, said Jennifer Nalbone, campaign director for Great Lakes United, an international coalition dedicated to preserving and restoring the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River.
"What we need is the standards set and a deadline for enforcement," she said. "We don't need to argue among ourselves how perfect is perfect and how hard it will be to meet a standard. We need to start moving."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jkuehner@plaind.com, 216-999-5325
