July 6, 2016 — The following is excerpted from the television program Chicago Tonight, which is hosted by Elizabeth Brackett and aired on WTTW in Chicago:
Elizabeth Brackett: Ocean-going ships that bring their cargo into Great Lakes ports, like the Federal Biscay, unloading foreign steel at the port of Indiana’s Burns Harbor, are regulated by both the U.S. Coast Guard and the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act.
In 2006, the Coast Guard began requiring those ships to dump the ballast water they picked up in foreign ports and pick up sea water.
That ballast water exchange must be made at least 200 nautical miles from land, in water that is 2,000 meters deep to prevent invasive species from being brought in with the new ballast water.
Shippers say those Coast Guard regulations have kept invasive species out of the Great Lakes.
James Weakley, Lake Carriers’ Association: The door was closed in 2006 when the Coast Guard stopped allowing vessels from the ocean to come in with ballast water that wasn’t managed. Not coincidentally, in 2007 the last invasive species was discovered, the bloody red shrimp, in the Great Lakes.
Brackett: Ocean-going vessels that sail the Great Lakes, called Salties, have worked on developing ballast water treatment systems. The Federal Biscay is the first ship on the Great Lakes to bring a ballast water treatment system online. Located in the bowels of the ship over the ballast water tanks, these pumps will push out the old ballast water and bring in the ocean water when the ship is at sea.
Ships, like the 678-foot Wilfred Sykes, that never sail beyond the Great Lakes, are called Lakers.
The Lakers have always been a bit concerned that they’ve gotten blamed for bringing in these invasive species, when you say primarily it’s been the Salties.
Weakley: Actually it’s exclusively been the Salties. We never leave the Great Lakes. Our ships are physically too big to get beyond the Welland Canal so we’ve been in the forefront of calling attention to the problem.
Brackett: Both the Salties and the Lakers agree that the proposed legislation called the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, which would exempt ballast water from the Clean Water Act and put the Coast Guard in charge, is needed.
Weakley: Currently we have a patchwork quilt of regulations, more than two dozen states have requirements on top of the two federal agencies, and what we’re looking to do is have a piece of legislation that has a single national standard with a single federal agency in charge.