Grand Rapids Press:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-36/1178021103262090.xml&coll=6
Environmental leaders defend state ballast law
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
By Ken Kolker
The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS -- State environmental leaders say they cannot fathom why the shipping industry is fighting a new state law meant to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species carried by ocean-going vessels.
The law regulates the release of ballast water into the big lakes by ocean-going ships, which can bring in species that wipe out native wildlife.
But shipping industry leaders have told state officials that only four cargo ships are known to empty their ballast in Michigan waters.
"It puzzles us. Why are they opposed if it's only four ships?" state Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Robert McCann said after a press conference Monday at Grand Valley State University.
State senators, led by Sen. Patricia Birkholz, R-Saugatuck Township, held a press conference with DEQ officials and environmental groups to defend the ballast law. They vowed to fight a federal suit filed by the shipping industry to overturn the law.
"They're suing us?" said Birkholz, who sponsored the law. "We should be suing them."
Shipping industry officials say the state law is premature and could lead to a patchwork of statutes from state to state. Other states are working on similar laws.
"We know there's a problem," said Paul Pathy, executive vice president of Fednav Limited, a Montreal-based shipping company that is part of the lawsuit.
"We're spending millions trying to fix it. But we can't have every state making up their own laws and their own standards as they go along.
"If Michigan puts in onerous requirements, then some ships might choose to go elsewhere."
Michigan became the first Great Lakes state to pass a ballast law three years ago, after complaints the federal government was too slow to respond. The law took effect Jan. 1.
The law requires ocean-going ships to buy a permit to enter Michigan water and notify the state if they plan to discharge ballast water. Ships must sterilize ballast before discharging it.
Industry officials, however, say they have not developed a safe way to treat ballast water.
"How do you kill what's in the water without damaging the water?" Pathy said. "The state has put the law ahead of the technology. We need the federal government to say, 'Here's the law, here's the standard.'"
As many as 90 ocean-going vessels ply Michigan's Great Lakes water through ports in Detroit and Menominee, said Ken DeBeaussaert, director of the DEQ's Office of the Great Lakes.
So far, 37 ships, including 10 from a Bulgarian company, have obtained permits. None of those ships discharges ballast water in the Great Lakes, state officials said.
The state has not identified the four ships that industry officials say are the only ones that dump ballast water while in Michigan.
Ships carry ballast water for balance, then empty it before taking on cargo. State officials say ballast is the main reason 183 alien species, including zebra mussels, have invaded the Great Lakes.
It is likely zebra and quagga mussels wiped out much of the native freshwater shrimp known as Diporeia, a main course for fish feeding at the bottom of the lakes, National Wildlife Federation Director Andy Buchsbaum said at the press conference. The federation is among the environmental groups siding with Michigan in the lawsuit.
The latest invader is the bloody-red shrimp, aka Hemimysis anomala, a native of the Black Sea, Azov Sea and the eastern Caspian See, which was first reported in Muskegon in November 2006. State officials say its impact on the Great Lakes is unknown.
Michigan officials said they believe many of the invaders enter the lakes through ballast discharged at larger ports in Duluth, Minn., and in other Great Lakes states.
State officials acknowledged it will be difficult to enforce its ballast law, though they say they could conduct spot inspections.
"This is all new to us," the DEQ's McCann said. "There's no way we can have people there whenever a ship's in port."
Pathy, of Fednav, said most ships entering Michigan water aren't carrying ballast because they are loaded with steel from Europe for the automobile industry.
Only a few ships are picking up goods in Michigan for export, he said.
Send e-mail to the author: kkolker@grpress.com
---
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving aquatic invasive species information for research and educational purposes.
