The time to act on aquatic invasive species is now

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the perfect and accept the possible. Or, to employ a recently popular expression, perfect is the enemy of good.

It’s time — now — for all parties engaged in the ballast water/invasive species issue to put their swords down, take a clear-eyed look at what can reasonably be accomplished and get behind a federal bill that will effectively and logically deal with this long-festering problem.

Over the last eight years, environmental organizations, academics, state governments and others have called upon Congress to improve federal regulation of ships’ ballast water. In the past few months, ballast legislation has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1578) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 2830). Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) has made this matter a priority. As Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he has a unique ability to deliver. The House is expected to bring its bill to the floor for a vote some time after the August Congressional recess. This schedule will help to ensure that the bill is enacted before the end of the 110th Congress. For years, Great Lakes states and environmental groups have been critical of Congress for ignoring this problem. Today, we have never been closer to getting ballast treatment legislation enacted. The time for studies and endless debates is over; it is time for action.

Let’s be perfectly clear here: The maritime community has been supporting federal legislation for more than a decade. In February of this year, I testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment concerning the impact of aquatic species on the Great Lakes. The focus of my comments was that this is far more than a Great Lakes issue; it is a national and international issue, and the solution lies in the passage of federal legislation with uniform, enforceable standards. While the various witnesses testifying that day offered differing perspectives, everyone agreed on one thing: Congress must move quickly to enact a national program requiring the treatment of ships’ ballast water.

The shipping industry — like any industry — operates under the terms of an unwritten social contract with the public. That is, our industry should add value to society, and do no harm. We, the ports, get that. The carriers get that. The shippers (those who pay the carriers to haul their cargo) get that.

Waterborne transportation is widely regarded as the safest, cleanest, most energy efficient and least costly mode of commercial transport. Ships emit one-tenth the greenhouse gas of trucks and half that of trains. One marine accident is recorded for every 13.7 rail accidents and 74.7 truck accidents. A 1,000-foot Panamax-sized laker sailing from Duluth to Detroit and back will deliver 65,000 tons of cargo with a total fuel burn of 75,000 gallons over a round trip of 1,450 miles. That’s 1.15 gallons /ton delivered. I can’t drive home for that.

Unfortunately, the emergence of aquatic invasive species has become our industry’s Achilles’ heel. We stand ready to solve this problem — and let me assure you that we will solve it.

With the work that has been done developing the Great Ships Initiative, we are prepared to test and certify current and developing technology (see Page 5). There is a win-win scenario, and it isn’t far out of reach.

Technology vendors have already developed a host of products to treat ballast water, but absent federal standards, they are reluctant to make the investment necessary to bring these products to market.

But is there a guaranteed, 100 percent, fail-safe approach out there somewhere? Is there that “perfect” system that will eliminate every imaginable possibility — no matter how remote — of some non-indigenous critter somehow slipping through the net? No. Didn’t the sea lamprey, for example, swim in by itself?

Oh, yes, some activists have suggested that the answer is to close down the St. Lawrence Seaway. Sure. Let’s add more rail tracks and super highways to handle the Seaway’s 30-some million tons of cargo, thus generating more air and ground pollution, more energy consumption, more accidents, more waste products, more urban congestion … hardly a wise environmental alternative.

This, then, brings us back to the possible. While the standards that have been introduced into proposed federal legislation are 100 times more stringent than international standards, no one is saying conformance is impossible. And while we wait for the testing, certification, commercialization and installation of treatment systems on thousands of ships throughout the world, we have identified best practices that introduce salt water into the ballast tanks of ocean vessels. The routine use of saltwater flushing of ballast tanks has been shown to be one highly effective method of reducing the risk of foreign species introduction.

The negative impacts of aquatic invasive species are not in dispute. The need of both the environment and industry is for Congress to create a regulatory framework within which the private sector can begin making the necessary investments to solve this problem. I believe we can protect the aquatic environment and maintain a healthy shipping industry. But, perfect won’t get us there.