When thinking about 2022, we can summarise its experience with ballast water testing with three questions, according to SGS Marine Field Services & Monitoring Americas manager Lisa Drake, NAM general manager Daniel Lodato and Asia-Pacific manager Guillaume Drillet
What is the biggest takeaway?
This was the year testing ballast water management systems (BWMS) took off. The surge in testing was driven by International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) requirement for biological testing during commissioning of new installations, which became effective 1 June 2022. This year, we saw an exponential rise in requests for commissioning testing. Indeed, so far, our teams around the world have conducted more than 1,000 tests.
What has changed?
In the early days of commissioning testing (Q3 2019), testing was required by only a handful of early adopters such as Singapore, and commissioning testing was conducted almost entirely in Asia. Now, testing is done worldwide. To date, we have carried out tests in 29 countries.
It is critical testing organisations meet high standards for quality and safety. Thus, several classification societies now require testing organisations to be approved service providers for BWMS commissioning testing: they must have rigorous quality and safety programmes, follow standard operating procedures adhering to IMO guidance, and have no conflicts of interest. Not only does this review assure class, clients and regulators, but it also evens the playing field across testing organisations. SGS welcomes this scrutiny. In fact, we are engaged with the international consortium of ballast and biofouling testing organisations, Global TestNet, for this purpose.
What have we learned?
Not surprisingly, communication and preparation are keys to success. Communication with all stakeholders needs to start early so sampling can proceed as soon as the testing team boards the ship. First, schedules need to be aligned. Also, by corresponding with the ships’ engineers, we can ensure the sampling point on the ship is compatible with our portable sampling device. If not, another visit to the ship is required.
From the ship’s side, making sure the ballast water tanks are cleaned – so no thick layers of accumulated sediment are present – is important. Otherwise, organisms in the sediment may cause the IMO discharge standard to be exceeded, and retesting is necessary. Along these lines, it is imperative to ensure piping is flushed and valves are in the appropriate positions to prevent untreated seawater from being tested.
Notably, the approach to ongoing compliance testing has changed. Previously, the conventional wisdom was that evaluating a ship’s compliance with the discharge standard could be done by collecting a relatively small sample of ballast water and analysing a subsample to determine the concentration of organisms in the ≥10 µm and <50 µm size class. Instead, our results show that when water is not compliant, it is almost exclusively due to larger organisms (≥50 µm). Thus, a larger, representative sample collected according to IMO guidelines will be required to understand compliance fully and accurately.
2022 was a leap forward in the journey of ballast water treatment and, by extension, environmental protection. Not only did the installation of BWMS accelerate greatly, but the lessons learned have also prepared the maritime industry and stakeholders to address compliance with the BWM Convention in two ways. First, they have smoothed the way for installations on the remaining ships in the global fleet. Second, the information gained from extensive commissioning testing will inform the next steps in developing robust port state control inspections.
What have been your experience with ballast water testing? Ask the experts at the forthcoming Ballast Water Webinar Week, 31 January 2023-02 February 2023. Register your interest here or to take part, contact: Paul Dowling (paul.dowling@rivieramm.com)
© 2023 Riviera Maritime Media Ltd.