Substantial Gaps in Knowledge Remain

While the salinity of the ballast water is used to determine if it has been exchanged, there is no accepted standard to evaluate how effective current ballast water exchange operations actually are at reducing entrained or accumulated sediment, and its associated organisms. Because ballast tanks containing residual water and sediment have been found to harbor viable organisms,¹⁶ a protocol (a wash out dye study) for testing the effectiveness of ballast water exchange would help ensure that alien invasive species are not released when a ship mixes ballast water with local water and discharges it during routine operations. Also lacking are agreed-upon discharge standards for ballast water treatment, describing numerical targets for the percent of viable organisms removed, including an acceptable number, type or stage of development for a wide range of organisms. Such standards are necessary to assess the effectiveness of alternative treatment technologies (including biocides) or the effectiveness of any technical modifications for improved ballast water exchange (the installation of ejectors). These protocols and standards would lay the basic foundation for an effective ballast water management program. In support of developing these needed protocols and standards, the U.S. Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force has recently approved research priorities recommended by its Ballast Water and Shipping Committee. Among its top priorities, the committee pointed to the need for public funding for research to develop methods to measure effectiveness of ballast water exchange procedures and to develop alternative technologies.

Research on developing and testing alternative technologies that could remove or kill alien invasive species, such as filtration, UV radiation, ozonation, biocides, heat and deoxygenation is lagging in the absence of standards and regulations.¹⁷ Paradoxically, the new mandatory ballast exchange requirements in the United States may also be delaying important research into new technologies. To test these new technologies, mandatory ballast water exchange requirements sometimes must be waived, but the current review process for such requests tends to take a long time.

In addition, the lack of assurances that investments to develop, test and implement new technologies will be protected from future rule changes contributes to delays in innovation. Inadequate funding to meet critical research and development needs, identified by numerous national and regional level panels, agencies, task forces and commissions, has delayed progress. Finally, the long-term and slow-moving nature of federal legislation and rulemaking, combined with the need for binational and international harmonization, has further delayed progress in developing and implementing new technologies to prevent immediately the introduction and spread of alien invasive species.