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Ocean Development & International Law
, 41:152–165, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0090-8320 print / 1521-0642 online
DOI: 10.1080/00908321003733139
Verifying Compliance with Ballast Water
Discharge Regulations
DENNIS M. KING
MARIO N. TAMBURRI
Center for Environmental Science
University of Maryland
Solomons, Maryland, USA
U.S. and international rules have been proposed to reduce the risks associated with
invasive aquatic organisms by requiring that ships’ ballast water be treated to kill
or remove living organisms and achieve certain standards before being discharged.
Enforcing these rules requires verifying when a discharge violates these standards. A
preliminary comparison of verification systems indicates that mandatory reporting and
inspecting treatment equipment do not provide an acceptable level of confidence and
that sampling and analyzing enough ballast water to achieve acceptable confidence is
prohibitively costly. The most cost-effective alternative that achieves an acceptable level
of confidence involves indirect measures of ballast water using sensors that indicate
whether discharge standards are met.
Keywords
ballast water regulations, enforcement, invasive species
Introduction
The international maritime industry, with more than 70,000 merchant vessels, is responsible
for transporting more than 80% of the goods traded in world markets, and is a foundation for
the global economy.
1
However, commercial shipping is also responsible for transporting
ballast water and introducing aquatic invasive species to coastal waters where they can
cause enormous ecological and economic damage.
2
The 1990 U.S. Non-indigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act (NAN-
PCA) was the first federal law to address the problem of aquatic invasive species.
3
It focused
mainly on ballast water introductions. The NANPCA contained provisions that required
ships headed for the Great Lakes to exchange their ballast water at sea. The law was
reauthorized in 1996, renamed the National Invasive Species Act (NISA) and expanded to
encourage, but not require, ballast water exchange for all ships arriving from outside the
200-mile U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
4
NISA also made reporting of ballast water
management to a national registry mandatory for all ships entering U.S. ports. In 2004,
the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) published regulations requiring vessels to maintain a ballast
water management plan that involves mid-ocean exchange of ballast water, retention of
Received 23 November 2009; accepted 1 February 2010.
Address correspondence to Dennis M. King, University of Maryland Center for Environmental
Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, P.O. Box 38, Solomons, MD 20688, USA. E-mail:
dking@cbl.umces.edu
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