In the 1980s, researchers found an innocuous mussel in Lake St. Clair, near Detroit. It had traveled on a ship from European ports all the way to the Great Lakes basin — where it eventually multiplied across Michigan’s lakes.
Today, zebra mussels cost the region roughly $500 million. They alter water quality, destroy infrastructure and hurt native species.
Now, the Canadian government says it’s trying to slow the spread of invasive species through a regulation that partly took effect this week. But the rule is drawing some flack from American commercial shippers in the Great Lakes.
The Soo locks, nestled on the St. Mary’s River, are a critical gateway for Great Lakes shipping. Every year, they will open and close, allowing passage between Lake Huron and Lake Superior to roughly 7,000 ships.
These freighters haul more than 70 million tons of cargo a year, transporting materials like iron ore, limestone, coal and wheat.
A federal study estimates that an unexpected outage of the locks for 2-6 weeks could halt 75% of the nation’s steel production, and a six-month outage would result in a $1.1 trillion loss in economic output.
As freighters unload their cargo, they’re also pumping in water onboard.
When ships make it to their destination from the Soo locks, they’ll discharge this water, while taking on new cargo.
This is known as a ballast water exchange, and it’s used in shipping to keep bulk carriers balanced.
But ballast water can also be a vessel for invasive hitchhikers. An organism like the invasive zebra mussel can be accidentally pumped onboard with ballast water and then dumped in a new location.
Roughly 40% of nonindigenous aquatic species are believed to have been inadvertently brought into the Great Lakes through ballast water on transoceanic ships.
“Our latest count is around 195 invasive species in the Great Lakes," said Rochelle Sturtevant, an aquatic invasive species researcher. "The vast majority of those are not in all of the Great Lakes.”
Sturtevant, with the Michigan Sea Grant program, said most regulations that address invasive species in ballast water are focused on saltwater ships that travel to freshwater ports.
But for ships that don’t leave the Great Lakes — known as “lakers” — it’s the wild west. Lakers are not expected to meet federal discharge standards that dictate how clean their ballast water should be.
“They aren't going outside the Great Lakes, so they aren't bringing anything from outside. That's the justification for them being exempt," Sturtevant said. "Now, they may be moving species around ports within the Great Lakes.”
American Great Lakes shippers denounce Canadian regulation
A Canadian regulation is looking to address the gap that leaves lakers unregulated by requiring these ships to install systems that filter ballast water.
Canada says the policy, which covers both lakers and saltwater vessels, will prevent an estimated 34 invasive species from being introduced and spread in their waters.
As of Sept. 8, only six American ships must have ballast water management systems in order to access Canadian ports. These ships, which were built after 2008, have applied for an exemption from the rule for up to five years. The older, remaining 50 lakers have until 2030 to be up-to-code.
American shippers are calling the policy a "regulatory embargo and blockade."
"American ships that aren't impacted yet will have to move some of that cargo, but even if that is the case, it still impacts the economics of our fleet," said Jim Weakley, the president of the Lake Carriers' Association, which represents the interest of U.S. commercial shippers in the Great Lakes.
Weakley said he believes the regulation aims to give Canadian industries a monopoly on trade in the Great Lakes between the two countries. The LCA estimates the rule could result in a billion-dollar loss of business for American carriers over the next two decades.
"We believe this is a trade issue, not an environmental issue, and that the purpose is to take American exports off American ships and put them on Canadian ships,” Weakely said.
Weakley said the regulation gives Canadian ships — that are mostly a newer, smaller fleet — an advantage.
"It's what I call the law of the least-loser is the relative winner," Weakley said. "... The Canadians are intentionally implementing a requirement that costs American ships more than Canadian ships ... because we don't build ships in China that are subsidized by the Chinese government."
As the regulation goes into effect, American ships without ballast systems will still able to transit through Canadian waters and access Canadian fuel stations. But Weakley said the law still oversteps U.S. authorities.
“Any American export that's loaded on a U.S. flagship has to meet the Canadian requirements, even if we're not discharging ballast water in Canada,” Weakley said.
The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission is examining these claims to determine if the law violates international shipping codes. The investigation could lead to counter measures like limiting or imposing fees on Canadian-flagged vessels at U.S. ports.
In a statement, Canada’s transportation department told WCMU that it stands by the rule as "nondiscriminatory" and "in the public interest."
The Canadian regulation comes amid a treaty with the International Maritime Organization (which the U.S. has not signed onto) that requires signatories to step up ballast water management, including installing ballast water systems.
Weakley argues that Canada does not have to implement this regulation on lakers in order to fulfill its treaty obligations, and Canadian authorities are stepping outside of their jurisdiction.
Ballast water technology limitations
Right now, ballast water technology comes with a high price tag, and it also may not be a silver bullet for addressing invasive species in the Great Lakes.
"The main argument (U.S. lakers) have is that it's not economically viable to put treatment systems on their ships." said David Reid, a retired scientist from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.
Reid, a leading ballast water researcher, said more regulations on lakers are inevitable in the future.
"Today, aquatic invasive species are a problem, and we need to pay attention to it," Reid said. "And one of the biggest vectors for aquatic invasive species moving around the world is going to be ballast water."
The main issue now, Reid said, is these systems, which often use a chemical or UV treatment to kill organisms in ballast water, are not always consistent in meeting discharge standards.
“(The International Maritime Organization) started getting reports that these systems are not working. They're breaking down," Reid said. They can't treat this water because it's out of the range of conditions that they were certified for.”
One report found that on vessels across the globe, the systems may only be meeting discharge standards half the time.
Though failure rates are decreasing, ballast water management systems struggle with filtering out larger organisms and are susceptible to operator errors, according to recent research.
On lakers, Reid said, researchers are not confident the systems are capable of handling Great Lakes water, extreme winter temperatures and variability in conditions like algal blooms or sediment loads.
He points to a "deemed compliance" clause in the Canadian policy he calls a “necessary cop-out” that accounts for potential shortcomings in ballast technology.
“The Canadians basically have said as long as you use an approved system that works we're going to assume, the discharge is compliant with our regulations, otherwise they would be shutting down the shipping industry half the time,” Reid said.
Tuning ballast water systems for the Great Lakes
As Canada moves forward with its policy, researchers like Matt TenEyck from the University of Wisconsin-Superior are studying how ballast water technology can be better tuned to fit lakers.
TenEyck said a few lakers have already installed ballast water management systems, and his team has been testing how the systems handle different conditions across Great Lakes ports.
"It looks like the water quality in the Great Lakes is different enough that that our early results — and giving you a caveat — our early results (inidicate) we're going to be looking at that global success rate of a little over 50%," TenEyck said.
TenEyck said he believes his team is close to understanding whether approved ballast water systems will be effective in the Great Lakes, but he worries about the securing funding to continue this work.
"(We need to) understand what (lakers) are up against. You can't develop technology reliably without knowing the challenges, and we've not done that," TenEyck said.
"... The only way to unpack the wild, wild west issue with the lakers is that we need to continue to fund that research. We're almost there."
Weakley said the LCA supports the Great Waters Research Institute, which TenEyck leads, and is not opposed to installing systems that work and are "appropriate" for the Great Lakes.
Back in the Soo locks, a neat line divides the St. Mary’s River on a map of the region and serves as the official border between the U.S. and Canada.
The line separates the waters of the two countries in a legal sense, but for invasive species, it’s still one connected channel.
According to Michigan Sea Grant, since 2006, there have been no confirmed introductions of aquatic invasive species to the Great Lakes through ballast water exchange, in large part due to regulations on transoceanic ships.
Reid acknowledges the Canadian regulation will hurt U.S. lakers economically, but he said the big-picture costs aren't clear.
"It's costing them a lot of money, and on the other hand, invasive species have cost the economy huge amounts of money," Reid said.
"I think (the movement of invasive species via lakers' ballast water) is relatively low risk. But what's your risk tolerance? Is one really bad actor, like another zebra mussel, an acceptable risk?"
Likewise, TenEyck said he won't make a judgement call on what the environmental versus economic "return on investment" is from the Canadian regulation.
But he's optimistic that configuring ballast water systems for the Great Lakes is a solvable puzzle — that can keep the shipping industry afloat, moving grain for farmers and steel for car manufacturing — while also stopping the spread of the next potential zebra mussel within the Great Lakes.
