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MERC ER02-09
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1. MERC 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 Center’s primary focus is to evaluate the
mechanical and biological efficacy, associated costs, and logistical aspects of ballast water
treatment systems and the economic impacts of ballast water regulations and management
approaches. A full description of MERC’s 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), Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), and University of Maryland
(UMD) to provide independent performance testing and to help facilitate the transition of new
treatment technologies to shipboard implementation and operations.
This report describes the MERC evaluation of the Maritime Solutions Inc. (MSI) Ballast
Water Treatment System through objective and quality assured land-based testing (dockside at a
flow rate of 200 m
3
/hr). The goal of this evaluation was to provide shipping lines, regulators,
classification societies, and flag states with an independent and credible assessment of treatment
performance under realistic conditions. Therefore, the data and information on performance
characteristics covers legitimate information to meet the evaluation's objective, and performance
is presented in a way to allow for comparison against the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and
Sediments (2004), Regulation D-2
Ballast Water Performance Standard
.
2. Description of the MSI Ballast Water Management System
The MSI Ballast Water Treatment System (UV), patent pending, is designed to meet
IMO D2 discharge standards for low to moderate flow rate shipboard applications. The
treatment utilizes Ballast Safe Filtration Company's proprietary self-cleaning filter design to
separate the components of the influent ballast water in its primary treatment stage. As a
primary treatment, the filter is intended to remove silt and sediment, organic materials and
organisms > 25 µm (nominal) in size from the influent ballast water. The remaining filtered
water stream is then treated by Hanovia UV In-Line UV units in a secondary treatment stage to
address the remaining organisms < 25 µm. In addition to its two treatment stages, the MSI
System (UV) has been fully integrated and is controlled by a proprietary ABB Instrumentation
water quality monitoring and flow control system designed to assure and document effective
treatment by continuously monitoring a number of water quality parameters including total
suspended solids (TSS) and UV transmission rate, automatically adjusting flow rate to assure
proper treatment, and recording all required water quality and system operation parameters.
Because the treatment system was a prototype, it was operated at all times by members of the
MSI or ABB staff. All evaluation system equipment and instrumentation, excluding the
treatment system, was operated by MERC personnel.