Ballast Water treatment - points to remember

BALLAST WATER MANAGEMENT STANDARDS - BY IMO There are two ballast water management standards (D-1 and D-2). The D-1 standard requires ships to exchange their ballast water in open seas, away from coastal areas. Ideally, this means at least 200 nautical miles from land and in water at least 200 metres deep. By doing this, fewer organisms will survive and so ships will be less likely to introduce potentially harmful species when they release the ballast water. The D-2 standard specifies the maximum amount of viable organisms allowed to be discharged, including specified indicator microbes harmful to human health. From the date of entry into force of the BWM Convention, all ships must conform to at least the D-1 standard; and all new ships, to the D-2 standard. Eventually, all ships will have to conform to the D-2 standard. For most ships, this involves installing special equipment to treat the ballast water. IMO Member Governments, meeting in the Marine Environment ...

What next for ballast water management regulation? Protecting marine ecosystems from potentially harmful invasive aquatic species transported in ships’ ballast water is an important part of IMO’s work to protect the marine environment.   The treaty supporting this is the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention, which requires ships in international traffic to manage their ballast water and sediments to a certain standard, according to a ship-specific ballast water management plan. But for regulation to be effective, it needs to be clearly understood by all stakeholders involved. To support this process, IMO’s Theofanis Karayannis has updated ballast water professionals, shipowners and other stakeholders meeting at the  BWMTech  London Conference (12 December) on recent regulatory developments. Specifically, he outlined the key decisions from the latest session of IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee ( MEPC 71 ) related to implementing the BWM C...

Ballast water may be taken onboard by ships for stability and can contain thousands of aquatic or marine microbes, plants and animals, which are then carried across the globe. Untreated ballast water released at the ship’s destination could potentially introduce a new invasive marine species.  Hundreds of such invasions have already taken place, sometimes with devastating consequences for the local ecosystem.  The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments ( BWM Convention)  was adopted in 2004 to introduce global regulations to control the transfer of potentially invasive species. With the treaty now in force, ships need to manage their ballast water. Read more   here . Status of the BWM Convention The BWM Convention  entered into force  on 8 September 2017. BWM treaty requirements  Under the Convention, all ships in international traffic are required to mana...

When the Marine Environment Protection Committee 71 (MEPC71) decided to extend the date of compliance with the Ballast Water Management Convention, shipowners gave out a sigh of relief. Vessels built before 8 September 2017 have  two years to install compliant ballast water management systems , which means two extra years of planning and searching for the right technology to implement . However, that also means that contaminated water may be carried from one destination to another. It is difficult to imagine that the ballast water in your tank could crush economies, but history suggests that the alien organisms carried in the ballast water tank have caused havoc, and even risked lives. what is next implementation schedul e n  Marine Menace – Alien invasive species in the marine environment , a paper by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the cause for many cases of alien invasions was attributed to human activity. The cases usually invo...

Erma First Gets USCG Type Approval for Its BWTS (Ballast Water Treatment System) Greece-based manufacturer of ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) Erma First has received the United States Coast Guard (USCG) Type Approval for its full flow electrolysis BWTS. On October 18, the company became the first full flow electrolysis BWTS vendor worldwide that received the USCG approval, for which it  filed  an application in April 2017. The system was successfully tested at three water salinities in Morocco, Spain, Netherlands, France, New York and Savannah. The testing period lasted 30 months and finished in autumn 2016, the company earlier informed. “The units used during the USCG Type Approval process have remained identical since we started. Moreover, no modifications were made to the units already delivered to clients nor will be made to those to follow,”  Helen Polychronopoulou, Business Development Manager of Erma First,  said. “With the Convention r...

Ballast Water Treatment - 10 Important points to comply with the convention The International maritime organization (IMO) in 1997 adopted the guidelines for control and management of ship’s ballast water to minimize transfer of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens from one sea area to another. Later, the Marine Environment Protection committee on February 2004 adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship’s Ballast Water and Sediments. According to this convention all ships should carry and implement ballast water and sediments management plan, maintain ballast water record book and carry out ballasting and de ballasting operations in accordance with the convention. Mentioned below are ten important points for complying with the ballast water convention: 1. General Methods For Managing Ballast Water Whose Source Is Anything Other Than The Deep Ocean Are As Follows: 1) Proceed to Port state approved offshore location to carry out exchan...