Duluth News Tribune:
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=47972§ion=Opinion
Federal solution to ballast water problem would serve industry and environment
Duluth News Tribune
Published Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the perfect and accept the possible. It’s time — now — for all parties engaged in the ballast water and invasive species issues to put down their swords, take a clear-eyed look at what can reasonably be accomplished and get behind a federal bill that will effectively and logically deal with the problem.
Over the past eight years, environmental organizations, academics, state governments and others have called on Congress to improve federal regulation of the ballast water of ships that enter the Great Lakes from the ocean. U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., has made this matter a priority. As chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he has a unique ability to deliver. Bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate. The House is expected to bring its bill to the floor for a vote some time after the August congressional recess. This schedule will help to ensure that the bill is enacted before the end of the 110th Congress.
For years, Great Lakes states and environmental groups have been critical of Congress for ignoring this problem. Today, we are closer than ever to getting ballast-treatment legislation enacted.
Let’s be perfectly clear here: The maritime community has been supporting federal legislation for more than a decade. In February of this year, I testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment on the effects of aquatic invasive species on the Great Lakes. I said this is far more than a Great Lakes issue; it is a national and international issue. The solution is in the passage of federal legislation with uniform, enforceable standards. While the witnesses testifying that day offered differing perspectives, everyone agreed on one thing: Congress must move quickly to enact a national program requiring the treatment of ships’ ballast water.
The shipping industry — like any industry — operates under the terms of an unwritten social contract with the public. That is, our industry should add value to society and do no harm. We, the ports, get that. The carriers get that. The shippers (those who pay the carriers to haul their cargo) get that.
Waterborne transportation is widely regarded as the safest, cleanest, most energy efficient and least costly mode of commercial transport. Ships emit one-tenth the greenhouse gases of trucks and half that of trains. One marine accident is recorded for every 13.7 rail accidents and 74.7 truck accidents.
Unfortunately, the emergence of aquatic invasive species has become our industry’s Achilles’ heel. We stand ready to solve this problem — and let me assure you we will solve it.
Technology vendors already have developed a host of products to treat ballast water. But absent federal standards, they are reluctant to make the investment necessary to bring these products to market. With the work that has been done developing the new Great Ships Initiative, we are prepared to test and certify current and developing technology.
But is there a guaranteed, 100 percent, fail-safe approach out there somewhere? No. The sea lamprey, for example, swam in by itself.
Some activists have suggested that the answer is to close down the St. Lawrence Seaway. But adding more rail and highways to handle the Seaway’s more than 30 million tons of cargo, thus generating more air and ground pollution, more energy consumption, more accidents, more waste products and more urban congestion, is hardly a wise environmental alternative.
This, then, brings us to the wiser course. And even though the standards that have been introduced into proposed federal legislation are 100 times more stringent than international standards, no one is saying compliance is impossible. And while we wait for the testing, certification, commercialization and installation of treatment systems on thousands of ships throughout the world, we have identified practices that introduce salt water into the ballast tanks of ocean vessels. The routine use of saltwater flushing of ballast tanks has been shown to be one highly effective method of reducing the risk of introducing foreign species into our waters.
The negative effects of aquatic invasive species are not in dispute. Both the environmental community and industry need Congress to create a regulatory framework within which the private sector can begin making the necessary investments to solve this problem. I believe we can protect the aquatic environment and maintain a healthy shipping industry. It is possible, but waiting for perfect won’t get us there.
Adolph Ojard is executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority.
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Distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving aquatic invasive species information for research and educational purposes.
