Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
uniform rules are essential to harmonise political, institutional and geographical
heterogeneity regarding BWM. This aspect triggered the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) mandate to address the ballast water problem originally.
Subsequently IMO worked on the preparation of the BWM Convention, which was
adopted in 2004, however it is not yet in force.
In light of this different national and regional BWM requirements continued to
be implemented to protect the coastal waters from introductions of HAOP as the
countries along these regions saw a need to implement such (sometimes voluntary)
BWM requirements even before the BWM Convention enters into force. In most
occasions, these regional initiatives follow exactly the requirements as set in the
BWM Convention, but they just apply earlier. However, to our knowledge only the
USA adopted BWM requirements which include D-2 standard related requirements
and more stringent numerical standards are also considered. Upon entry into force
of the BWM Convention many of these national and regional requirements are in
most cases expected to be replaced by the BWM Convention requirements.
Ballast Water Management Convention
Agreements reached on a global level usually represent a combination of signifi cant
compromises coupled with action in the face of limited knowledge - and the BWM
Convention is not an exception. During the BWM Convention negotiations, many
issues were subject of controversial discussions and in certain cases it was extremely
hard to reach a consensus, but when dealing with shipping we believe that solutions
to an environmental problem should be sought at a global scale.
Although the movement of non-indigenous species usually receive predominant
attention, the BWM Convention addresses all species, i.e. cryptogenic species and
harmful native species are also included as IMO uses the term “Harmful Aquatic
Organisms and Pathogens” (HAOP).
All IMO Conventions, Codes, Protocols etc., are written for ships involved in
international voyages through international waters and may be adopted by states for
domestic implementation. This Convention protects the coastal environments,
mainly up to 50 NM with port State and fl ag state requirements relating to HAOP
being discharged via ballast water into the receiving ports/areas. However, ballast
water discharge can also affect international waters especially when ballast water
is exchanged “on the high seas” according to the D-1 standard. The D-2 standard
however relates to any discharge of ballast water from a vessel regardless of its
location. The move to a discharge standard provides protection to high seas as well
as coastal regions of the world's oceans and seas.
A country considering to become a Party to the BWM Convention must make
resources available to ensure that the obligations resting on the country are ensured
and not underestimated. The implementation of this Convention may involve sig-
nifi cant costs for the shipping industry, e.g., to install and operate BWMS. However,
we believe that an appropriate cost/benefi t analysis would reveal that funds used to
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