New ballast water regulations designed to hinder the transport of aquatic invasive species within our Great Lakes will come into effect at the end of the year.
They will require vessels entering the Great Lakes to transition to modern ballast water systems that cleanse water of organisms before release. The new regulations also include a program for a transition to the new water systems for vessels travelling only within the Great Lakes.
Prior to 2006, a new aquatic invasive species was being introduced to the Great Lakes about every eight months. In 2006, new regulations required ships coming from other continents to switch their ballast water while in salt water.
The problem, which the Great Lakes Commission’s Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species has been studying for years, is Great Lakes vessels which use ballast water are moving these invasive species from one location to another within the Great Lakes.
The new regulations will tackle this problem.
Dear Sir, hopefully the EPA will address the ballast water issue in the Great Lakes with a new VIDA plan soon by adopting a binational approach that will at least equal the Canadian efforts to have all vessels equipped with a ballast water management system by 2030. The last purposed plan for ( VIDA) the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act published on the Federal register by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in October 2023 recommended very little if any new protection, would be require for United States vessels traversing the Great Lakes and they even recommended vessels wait and not install ballast water management systems, nor did it address the need for better protection against ballast tank sludge, bacteria and virus’s that the salt water flush dose not totally eliminate, such as cholera and (vhs). They even suggested eliminating best management practice (bmp) for ballast water uptakes even if they are aware the uptakes may contains sewage. To my knowledge at this point nothing official has been released, you seem quite optimistic, I sincerely hope you are right.
Sincerely Don Mitchel
What are the new regulations? Any one have resources to back this up?
Ballast water, Chevron Doctrine, Great Lakes, VIDA
 The Chevron Doctrine and Ballast Water
     The Chevron doctrine sounds like it could again be a win for the shipping industry to continue destroying the water quality of the Great Lakes. The results again may be an attempt to protect the Great Lakes from ballast water pollution with states rights. The EPA mentions the possibility of going back to the states for regulation in their 2023 supplemental purposed VIDA regulations. Unfortunately this could again, result in using a patch work of state laws and regulations for the Great Lakes, without an infrastructure to enforce individual state regulations. This easily could create economic competition between the United States and the Canadian economic interests. Perhaps this explains why the US Maritime Commission has already started considering imposing fines on Canadian economic interests.     Â
    Environmental groups initiated a lawsuit and prominent scientists wrote a joint letter to alert President Biden so he would encourage the EPA to due their job prudently and satisfy the VIDA legislation with adequate protections. The lawsuit resulted in a court order establishing September23 2024 as a deadline for the EPA to issue a final rule to satisfy the bipartisan VIDA legislation.Â
   The US Maritime Commission has recently started considering actions to penalizing Canadian economic interests because the Canadian government is trying to protect their waters. (illustrated by recent posting on the federal register for comments) This seems premature and is not appropriate considering the court ordered date for EPA to complete a final rule to satisfy the VIDA legislation has not yet arrived. If the ruling on the Chevron Doctrine interferes with the establishment of a final rule, coming after four years of inaction by President Biden’s EPA to establish a final rule to satisfy the bipartisan VIDA legislation passed by the Trump administration in 2018, it will provide a cover for what will become President Biden’s meaningless binational rhetoric. President Biden publicly expressed to his Canadian counterpart a desire for a binational environmental stewardship to protect the Great Lakes. Sadly if the Chevron rule negates establishing a final rule for the VIDA legislation to protect American waters it should be historically noted it was because of weak Presidential leadership that allowed his administrations EPA to continue to kick the can down the road for four years avoiding action to try and stop the continuing destruction of the Great Lakes from ballast water discharges. Unfortunately this inaction will destroy the viability of the largest fresh water system in the worldwide for all the future generations of the United States and Canada.