Globalisation has many facets. It’s not only about the trade between continents, international value chains and work sharing or the[ds_preview] mixing of cultures. It also brings living creatures together: humans, but also insects, crabs, plankton and bacteria. Associated with international transport »stowaways« have always immigrated into new habitats. The examples of tarantulas in banana boxes or certain vermin bugs in bulk cargoes of grain are known since almost centuries. International transport activities have multiplied since WW II and most of them are facilitated by ships, which commonly discharge ballast water in a very different part of the world, often with significant consequences for the marine flora and fauna of the destination area, due to the »stowaways« in the dumped ballast water.
It is therefore in line with the growing awareness for sustainable use of our planet’s natural resources, that IMO has addressed this issue and its members have agreed on the Ballast Water Convention in 2004. At the first glance it appears fair enough, that ship owners would be expected to invest a few hundred thousand dollars more per vessel, in order to protect the environment. But it is the sheer number of concerned ships which makes this a huge investment for the shipping community. Different sources estimate that worldwide 40,000–57,000 vessels would have to be equipped with a ballast water treatment plant in the actual decade, equivalent with a new 25–30 billion US$ market for treatment plants, which even attracted venture capitalists to invest in system developers.
However, seen from the perspective of a ship owner, planning to retrofit a ballast water treatment plant is still somehow »shooting on a moving target« today. On one hand it seems to be likely, that the IMO convention will enter into force fairly soon, although some major shipping countries (including Germany) have still not ratified it.
This means that for many ships, in particular the newer ones, the system selection and planning for the installation of such plant during a regular docking in the coming twelve months should start more or less now. On the other hand, it is not yet clear, whether a treatment plant, that is certified to match the IMO-D2 standard, will later be sufficient in countries which actually discuss stricter standards, for example the US, in which even among the different federal states there are different opinions about the number of bacteria which should be allowed per millilitre effluent. One can only hope that the ongoing discussions in the IMO will finally lead to a world wide unified standard. The same applies for the procedures, according to which the performance of installed treatment plants could be later tested in the framework of port state control. Marine scientists state it would be not at all granted, that different testing labs and authorities would come to similar results, if no well defined and harmonized procedures for the necessary chemical and biological tests would be made mandatory. At present this issue is still discussed in an IMO expert group and due to be reported in spring 2012, obviously with no predictable outcome.
The ambiguous state of affair described above leaves the world’s maritime and environmental administrations as well as IMO quite some of homework to complete, in
order to establish a level playing field and clear cut planning fundamentals, not only for the shipping community, but also for the developers and makers of treatment
systems. There is no time to lose and big responsibility with the actors, for the sake of the sensitive environment of our planet, but also smooth and economic sea transport on it.
Michael vom Baur
