EPA wants public feedback on proposed ballast regulations, permits
July 11, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Source: WOOD-TV
A federal court has ordered the EPA to develop ballast regulations by Sept. 30. The agency, which has long exempted ballast discharges from anti-pollution requirements, is appealing. But it has proposed a general permit for shippers and is taking public comments this month.
Benjamin Grumbles, EPA’s assistant administrator for water, described the proposed permit as “a stopgap approach for regulating ballast and other vessel discharges in the most practical way possible” while Congress debates the matter.
The EPA permit would require oceangoing freighters to dump ballast water at least 200 miles from shore, then refill the tanks with seawater to kill remaining freshwater creatures.
That isn’t a new idea; Congress ordered the same thing in 1990 for saltwater ships en route to the lakes.
But the Coast Guard, which oversees compliance, opened a gaping loophole by exempting ships with full cargo loads _ about 90 percent of the “salties” calling at Great Lakes ports. Their ballast tanks are presumably empty, although they often hold residual pools of water and mud teeming with aquatic life.
Under the EPA permit, ships with no ballast on board would have to rinse their tanks with saltwater before entering U.S. territorial waters. Canada imposed the same requirement two years ago.
Read why the proposed tank “swishing” isn’t resolving the debate, at WOOD-TV >>
