For the first time, the federal government will protect the Chesapeake Bay and other watersheds across the nation from invasive species carried by foreign ships.
The National Invasive Species Act, signed yesterday by President Clinton, sets up a program to prevent contamination during the release of ballast water carried by giant ships from around the world.
The policy is intended to halt the "game of biological roulette," said Dr. James Carlton, an authority on marine invaders.
"Right now, we don't [know] what's going to come, if it will survive, or what impact it will have," said Carlton, director of Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program in Connecticut.
The law contains these major elements:
Nonbinding guidelines calling on ships to discharge ballast well away from coastal waters such as the Chesapeake Bay.
A requirement that the Coast Guard report to Congress on compliance, so guidelines can be made mandatory if necessary.
Federal money for research on the affects of exotic species invasions, and on new techniques for preventing release of exotics in ballast.
The new law, modeled after a 1990 measure targeting the Great Lakes, addresses a potent environmental problem.
"It's worse than a chemical spill because it can never be removed," said Allegra Cangelosi, a senior policy analyst with the Northeast-Midwest Institute, who helped draft the legislation. "A biological spill is permanent."
Water is not the only home of invasive species. But, in 1988, it brought the zebra mussel to the United States, where the mussel has multiplied in the Great Lakes, clogging water pipes and costing utilities about $120 million. Ballast and the (x organisms in the water also can transport disease-causing bacteria such as cholera.
The ships carry ballast to balance their cargo. As the ships drop or take on cargo, they generally draw in or release the equivalent weight in ballast water.
The new law directs all foreign ships to exchange ballast in the high seas, at least 200 miles from shore. That means the ships would release water from their home ports into the ocean and would then enter the Chesapeake carrying ballast water from the ocean. For several reasons, the organisms would die in the ocean but might thrive if brought closer to land.
The law funds studies of invasion patterns and remediation in five regions, including the Chesapeake, which could receive as much as $750,000 per year for six years. Maryland Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, a Democrat, and Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, an Eastern Shore Republican, helped guide the bill through Congress.
The Chesapeake, with popular ports in Baltimore and Hampton Roads, Va., within a 24 hour-drive of 30 percent of the nation's population, receives more ballast than any other eastern port -- some 13.2 million gallons daily.
Within three years, if ballast release is not adequately reduced, the Coast Guard can then begin levying fines of up to $25,000 per day.
The law addresses the problem by providing $2.5 million to develop alternative technologies, such as filtration, heating or ultraviolet light. Cangelosi estimates the technology is at least 00 five years away.
Pub Date: 10/27/96
