2023's top stories in Ballast Water Treatment Technology

Keeping with the trend from our most-read stories on Ballast Water Treatment Technology in 2022, in 2023, as looming compliance deadlines made way and the industry moved ahead, some of the daunting logistics still to be overcome to meet compliance lingered. Vessels in the US fell foul of the Clean Water Act, the EPA wrangled with the implications of its Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (VIDA), IMO made slow, if incomplete, progress on water quality issues at MEPC80 while a group of academics outlined the ’last steps’ to ballast water compliance. 

To read each story in full, click on the headline, the image or the link at the end of the text.

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1. Vessels fined for US Clean Water Act violations

Two shipping companies, Swire Shipping and MMS, have agreed with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to settle claims of breaching the agency’s Vessel General Permit, which falls under the EPA’s Clean Water Act.

The settlements involve severe penalties imposed upon the companies for their failure to conform to specific regulations related to ballast water discharge, inspection procedures, monitoring protocols and timely reporting.

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2. BWMS: what seafarers want

In a study conducted by Mevlüt Yılmaz as part of a Master’s thesis supervised by Ceren Bilgin Güney at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey, clear parameters for an ideal ballast water management system (BWMS) were identified based on seafarers’ experiences. Mr Yılmaz’ study evaluated the experiences of 50 expert seafarers (24 deck personnel and 26 engine personnel) working in a Turkish maritime company on tankers equipped with UV and electrochemical BWMS.

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3. MEPC 80: the outcomes for ballast water

Although there were hopes, left unresolved, for solid progress on the issue of challenging water quality, there was agreement and adoption of other ballast water issues at IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee 80 meeting in London in July 2023. Under the Ballast Water Management Convention review process, various items have been added or improved to make the convention more manageable.

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4. EPA proposes continuing existing numeric discharge standards

US Environmental Protection Agency has issued a notice on the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (VIDA), which explains the thinking behind rulemaking for national standards of performance for marine pollution control devices.

The supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking explains the processes and analysis EPA has undertaken ahead of the rules to be created to meet obligations under VIDA. This has been the subject of some controversy, being two years late and the subject of threatened legal action by the US Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth.

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5. Ballast water compliance is possible: the last steps

At MEPC 80, the lack of “approved sampling and analysis methods useable in a PSC context” was noted, and SGS Marine Field Services & Monitoring believes a clarification would be helpful, as this idea may be misunderstood if it is taken out of context.

At present, no detailed procedures for sampling and analysis have been produced for the sole purpose of compliance testing during Port State Control inspections. Further, the existing IMO references for ’trial use’ are limited (eg Guidelines G2 and BWM.2/Circ.42/Rev.2), and they may need to be revised given the lessons learned thus far. 

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