MARITIME OPERATIONS COURSEWORK:

The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship's Ballast Water and Sediments - What is coming to the horizon and how it is going to change our company?



The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship's Ballast Water and Sediments - What is coming to the horizon and how it is going to change our company?

Introduction

Ballast water is taken by ships to stabilize the loading or unloading process from the surrounding water and with it organisms, such as small fungi, bacteria, algae, plankton, shellfish and small fish, which are then released in other marine regions as soon as the ship re-worked or discharged. The introduction of alien species is one of the biggest problems facing the marine environment. Disseminate so in the North and Baltic Sea already razor clam species such as the American, the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leydii and influence of the shipworm and the ecosystem. The latter in particular is directed to large losses as it erodes local woods.

Therefore, the International Ship Organization ( IMO ) adopted in February 2004, the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ballast Water and Sediments. The Convention wrote in 2009 and not later than 2016, for each vessel ballast water management, which dispenses with the usual uncontrolled water interchange. Ballast water must be treated before its discharge into the sea instead on board, so that in the convention defined standard is achieved. At the time of adoption of the Convention, there was still no appropriate technical solution for the treatment of ballast water. Meanwhile, working worldwide for reliable ballast water treatment systems. The North German HAMANN AG and Evonik Degussa GmbH developed the world's first system that was approved by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).

Discussion

The Ballast Water Convention enter into force 12 months after ratification by 30 States whose combined merchant fleets of at least 35 percent of the gross tonnage of the merchant fleet in the world in power. Ecological disasters caused by the sinking of the Amoco Cadiz (March 16, 1978), the Tanio (March 7, 1980), Erika (December 12, 1999) or Prestige (13 November 2002) to name just the most infamous disasters are visible and proven challenging (Selbig & Bannerman, 2011).

Less known and more difficult to establish, pollution due to discharges from ballast water and sediments of ships remain no less devastating to the marine ecosystem. These waters, though indispensable to navigation, is a vector of marine pollution far more important that a spill. Thus the class IMO ballast water among the four major threats to the oceans, with the destruction of marine habitat, overexploitation of marine resources and marine pollution from land (Miller, Frazier, Smith, Perry, Ruiz & Tamburri, 2011). Pollution from ballast water pollution is not a rejection of goods transported by ships - as cargo or as a bunker - but a transfer of pollution of aquatic species across the oceans and seas.

Ballast water are intended to contribute to the equilibrium and stability of ...