"Ship discharges threaten sea life" by Bina Venkataraman, Globe Correspondent | January 26, 2009
Crisscrossing the seas on global trade routes, cargo ships suck up billions of tons of water to provide a steadying weight, and then dump that water back into the ocean when it's time to take on new cargo. Each year, ocean-faring vessels from overseas discharge enough of this ballast water in US waters to fill about 20,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
With the discharged ballast water come tiny hitchhikers from afar - invasive species of algae, invertebrates, and young crabs and fish picked up in distant harbors. These invaders - which threaten to crowd out the sea life native to our waters, and can even pose dangers to humans - are arriving in greater numbers, aided by the rise of global trade, and the advent of faster ships.
See?
At the same time, climate change is expected to allow some of these invasive species to thrive farther north than in the past.
They never stop grinding that fraud of an axe, do they?
Seeing as it is getting colder, I guess I won't have to worry then, huh?
All this has sent engineers, scientists, and coastal resource managers scrambling to find ways to deal with these marine invaders before it's too late.
"The field is in its infancy," said Nick Welschmeyer, a professor at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and San Jose State University in California. "But there's a mad, grinding rush and competition to have ballast treatment technology work efficiently."
On the Massachusetts coast, scientists already see reasons to step up research efforts. Dense, gooey mats of invertebrates known as sea squirts, probably transferred by ballast water or ships' hulls, have blanketed parts of Georges Bank, a rich fishing commercial fishing ground, over the past few years. Scientists worry they may hinder local fish reproduction and feeding habits. Recently, a red algae that spread rapidly in Narragansett Bay several years ago and competed with native algae species was spotted in Cape Cod Canal and Boston Harbor.
Yeah, but they blame the Banks' problems on fisherman overfishing! Ever notice that the agenda-pushers always consider PEOPLE a PROBLEM -- even when they aren't?
"We are very concerned about it, especially because it seems to be spreading," said Adrienne Pappal, coordinator of the aquatic species program at the state's Office of Coastal Zone Management, about the red algae. "It's supposed to be limited by cold water - but we're concerned that it could expand."
With the spread of marine invasive species also comes an increased risk of pathogens that pose a threat to human health. For example, the Chinese mitten crab, which has spread in San Francisco Bay and Oregon and was spotted recently in Chesapeake Bay, plays host to a parasitic worm that has infected people in East Asia with a tuberculosis-like illness.
The challenge is to figure out how to treat the vast volumes of ballast water at a low enough cost, and without harm to the ocean life in places where the treated water is dumped.
Should the COST be an object when SAFETY is at STAKE? Or is this just MORE FEAR-MONGERING BULLSHIT to ADVANCE the AGENDA, huh?
Rules adopted by the United States in 2004 and a 2001 international treaty on ballast water, not yet ratified, have driven much of the research, Welschmeyer said, because the global shipping industry is looking for ways to comply with new and emerging regulations.
Efforts to sterilize ballast water using ultraviolet light, or treat it with chemicals toxic to marine life, have had limited success, said Welschmeyer.
Yeah, let's treat the stuff with TOXIC CHEMICALS that then get DUMPED into the OCEANS!!!! Isn't this guy supposed to be smart?
The flow of the water can be so fast, and the harbors it is drawn from so murky, that ultraviolet bulbs will not kill off all organisms. Another challenge is proving that a treatment works by testing it on all kinds of species. Many invasive hitchhikers are so tiny that scientists cannot tell if they are alive, even under a microscope.
Oh, GLOBALISM has worked out JUST GREAT, huh? It has POISONED the WORLD (as it was intended to do, no doubt)!!
"Now everybody is looking for the simple, pregnancy-style stick that will tell us the live/dead status of all the organisms in a tank of water," Welschmeyer said.
Ships arriving at US ports have to exchange their ballast water for sea water at least 200 miles from shore in the open ocean, where organisms from estuaries abroad have a lower chance of surviving and reproducing. But the rules do not apply to boats that travel up and down the coastline. Even the ships that exchange their ballast water retain residue of tiny creatures in their tanks that continues to get transferred to harbors and estuaries, scientists who study the invasions say.
About 100,000 ships come to the United States from overseas each year, said Greg Ruiz, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He says that rules for ballast water exchange have decreased the concentration of organisms in a given amount of water, even as the problem has been made worse by larger ships, which carry more ballast water, and faster crafts, which allow more organisms to survive a journey.
The coastal management agency in Massachusetts trains a fleet of volunteers to spot invasive species, said Pappal. Last year, they identified eight. Since 1998, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has spent millions of dollars on more than 30 research projects related to ballast water research. The United States has labs to test ballast water treatments in Key West, Florida, and in Wisconsin. Two more are under construction in Washington State and Maryland. Some scientists believe the race to treat ballast water is especially urgent because of warming.
I'm starting to smell another BOONDOGGLE, folks!
Because of WARMING, huh? PFFFFFFFFTTT!
"Because New England is warmer, species that have been coming in from ballast water from around the world that previously found New England too cold will now become established here," said James Carlton, a professor and marine ecologist at Williams College who expects to see more invasions here in the years to come.
Nothing like PUSHING THAT AGENDA, huh? Even if it is a LIE!!!
"We try to keep our eyes on the coast," he said. "The world's plants and animals are knocking on our door."
Then LET 'EM IN!!!
