Ahoy mate, watch your discharge…There’s a new treaty in town

In the near future, the entire global shipping industry will be mandated to implement new environmental controls (forever…). Much like the state emission controls for automobiles we are all familiar with, for vessels, these are mandates of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the US Coast Guard (USCG). The ballast water on over 60,000 vessels must be tracked, treated to be free of live organisms (aquatic invasive species), and provide documentation.

In brief, 5 to 7 million metric tons of water used as ballast during cargo transport operations becomes “managed ballast water”. For tens of thousands of ships, and the ports they call on, it is their legal obligation to install ballast water treatment systems to prevent the spread (kill) these invasive species, the source of invasive species transported from port to port, causing devastating ecological and economic harm. and monitor their performance to numeric standards. If deficient, the vessel could receive a warning, fine, or kept at the port for corrective action.

This presentation will describe the laws, their numeric standards, the specific pathogens which are part of these regulations, and the methods which are envisioned to assure compliance to those standards. The challenges and limitations of pathogen detection tools in the midst of a shipping application will be discussed.