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MERC+GSI – DRAFT Test Plan
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1. MERC and GSI Background and Objectives
The Maritime Environmental Resource Center (MERC) is a State of Maryland initiative
that provides test facilities, information, and decision tools to address key environmental issues
facing the international maritime industry. The primary focus is to evaluate the mechanical and
biological efficacy, costs, and logistical aspects of ballast water treatment systems and to assess
the economic impacts of ballast water regulations and management approaches. A full
description of MERC structure, products, and services can be found at www.maritime-
enviro.org.
To address the need for effective, safe, and reliable ballast water treatment systems to
prevent the introduction of non-native species, MERC has developed as a partnership between
the Maryland Port Administration (MPA), Chesapeake Biological Laboratory/ University of
Maryland Center for Environmental Science (CBL/UMCES), U.S. Maritime Administration
(MARAD), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center (SERC), and University of Maryland (UM) to provide
independent performance testing and to help facilitate the transition of new treatments to
operations. Treatment evaluation efforts will also take advantage of expertise and the rigorous
technology evaluation format/process developed by the Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT,
www.act-us.info). ACT is NOAA-funded distributed testbed, headquartered at CBL/UMCES,
dedicated to fostering the development and adoption of effective and reliable sensors for
studying and monitoring coastal environments.
The Great Ships Initiative (GSI) is a collaborative not-for-profit endeavor to resolve
barriers to effective and efficient ballast water treatment by ships. To that end, GSI evaluates the
performance characteristics of proposed ballast water treatment systems at the bench-, land-
based and shipboard scales. GSI land-based and shipboard testing is reserved for operationally
feasible treatment systems likely to meet prevailing performance standards and environmental
soundness requirements. The goal of GSI ballast treatment research services at the land-based
and shipboard scales is to provide shipping lines, treatment developers and regulators with an
independent and credible assessment of treatment performance under realistic freshwater
challenge conditions. To that end, the fundamental approach of GSI is to conduct independent,
scientifically-sound, rigorous, and quality assured evaluations of ballast water treatment systems
under challenging ambient freshwater conditions based on the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) G8 guidelines and the U.S. Coast Guard supported ETV protocols under
development.
The following protocols describe how MERC and GSI will evaluate the performance
characteristics of the Siemens Water Technologies SiCURE
TM
Ballast Water Management
Systems through objective and quality assured land-based testing (dockside at a flow rate of
200m
3
/hr). The goal of this specific evaluation is to provide shipping lines, regulators, and flag
states with an independent and credible assessment of treatment performance under realistic
conditions. Therefore, the data and information on performance characteristics will cover
legitimate information that users need and will compare performance against the International
Maritime Organization (IMO) D2 regulatory discharge standards.
It is important to note that MERC and GSI themselves do not certify technologies or
guarantee that a treatment will always, or under circumstances other than those used in testing,
operate at the levels verified. Treatment systems are not labeled or listed as acceptable or
unacceptable but tests and presented results are in a format consistent with that requested by