A recent federal rule says all newly made shipping vessels on the great Lakes must have water treatment technology onboard to limit the spread of invasive species.
WCMU's Morning Edition host Tina Sawyer spoke with WCMU environmental reporter Teresa Homsi about the updated "ballast rule."
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length. You can hear the conversation by clicking the LISTEN button above.
Tina Sawyer: Can you start by explaining what ballast water is?
Teresa Homsi: Yes, so important definition here before we go any further into this conversation.
When freighters are moving around between different ports, they have changing cargo loads. And in order to stay balanced, they will need to either load or discharge what's called ballast water.
So ballast water is pumped on a tank on board, and it helps keep ships stable. They can still kind of maintain the same weight or the same depth in the water.
But when it comes to ballast water, there is an environmental concern because shipping operators can move up to 16 million gallons of water on a single trip.
And when they're pumping and discharging this water in different locations across the Great Lakes, invasive species could be caught in that water and moved around between different lakes.
TS: So over this past year, there's been a lot of regulatory hoopla (with ballast water). So tell us more, Teresa, about what U.S. authorities are doing.
TH: The latest development is that the Environmental Protection Agency recently updated its, what are called, discharge standards. And those essentially determine how clean ballast water should be.
But lakers or ships that do not leave the Great Lakes are still exempt from this rule. They have been exempt and they continue to be from discharge standards.
The reasoning is that because they don't leave the Great Lakes, they're not introducing new species. In fact, no new species have been introduced since 2006, and that's due to regulations on the ships that go between the Great Lakes and say, the Atlantic.
But as part of the new rule, future lakers will eventually be expected to have these ballast water management systems that essentially filter this ballast water.
TS: And you reported in September that there have been some regulatory changes on the Canadian front. So how does that fit into all of this?
TH: So in September, a Canadian regulation partly went into effect requiring lakers that are built after 2008 to have these ballast water management systems on board, and they need this in order to access Canadian ports.
So far, this initially applied to six vessels. Right now it's down to three. Some of those ships have received exemptions from this rule. Some of them, the rule didn't even apply to them in the first place. But right now, there's about three American ships that cannot access Canadian ports because this regulation went into effect.
And I say partly because in 2030, all lakers are going to be expected to have these ballast water management systems, according to the Canadian regulation.
TS: So how do American Great Lakes shippers feel about all of this?
TH: When it comes to the Canadian rule, American Great Lakes shippers are saying that this is a "regulatory embargo," and that this rule is giving Canadian ships a trade advantage in the Great Lakes.
In fact, they have petitioned U.S. authorities to investigate this rule. So right now, the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission is looking to see whether or not the Canadian rule violates some trade agreements between the U.S. and Canada. And they're expected to make a decision on that in December.
When it comes to the EPA rule, the new one that future builds are going to be expected to have these systems on board, existing ships are exempt, American shipping companies are also unhappy about that.
There's an economic cost to installing these systems, and also there is a concern, among researchers as well, as to whether or not they actually effectively treat ballast water.
These ballast water management systems were not generally designed with the Great Lakes in mind. When you're looking at the Great Lakes, you're talking about extremely clean, freshwater. And so some of these systems might not be able to account for those types of conditions.
