January 2018

New ballast water series from the US Coast Guard

Rear Admiral John Nadeau, assistant command for prevention policy of the US Coast Guard has created a blog series following up on last year’s success. The former ballast water blog series received great feedback and according to John Nadeau the series created numerous discussions both nationally and internationally.

In the first blog of the new series Nadeau writes:

“In 2016, the Coast Guard received more than 122,000 ballast water reports, and reporting compliance is over 90 percent. There are now six U.S. type approved Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS), and the Coast Guard expects more applications for type approval in the near future. The Coast Guard focus has shifted from implementing the 2012 regulations to ensuring that vessels comply with requirements. Things have changed internationally as well. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) Ballast Water Management Convention entered into force on Sept. 8, 2017, requiring most ships around the world to comply with the Convention. Although the U.S. is not a party to the Convention, the Coast Guard recognizes this milestone as it represents many years of hard work by nations around the globe to prevent the spread of invasive species in ballast water. ”

The subjects of the 6 blogs within the series are among other things the compliance approach, industry policies and USCG type approval program. In the end of the first blog post of the series John Nadeau states that:

“The Coast Guard will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure our compliance approach is as consistent and practical as possible. I look forward to continued dialogue between the Coast Guard and industry as we work together to reduce the threats of invasive species."

Earlier in the fall, DESMI Ocean Guard released the CompactClean system which is currently undergoing type approval testing according to both IMO and USCG requirements, under the surveillance of Lloyd’s Register and in relation to the compliance approach, CEO of DESMI Ocean Guard, Rasmus Folsø explains:

“With the CompactClean system we have managed to develop a system that can treat ballast water everywhere in the world and meet both IMO (International Maritime Organisation) and US Coast Guard standards. The system is free of any troubling operational limitations and can treat water independent of its salinity (fresh, brackish, and marine water) and temperature, and can operate at full flow in the vast majority of ports around the world. It is important to underline that this performance is global and the system does not include any special modes or similar that needs to be applied during discharge of ballast water in US territory. For DESMI it has been important to provide the shipping industry with a solution that works globally without any special interference of the crew, and which can be installed very easily without relocating other equipment.”

This new USCG blog series offers an insight into the industry, the players within and the challenges of the many policies. A must read for interested parties.

The following blog post has already been made available on the US Coast Guard Blog for Maritime Professionals: