New York's Right to Strictly Regulate Ballast Water Validated

Ballast water is carried in unladen ships to provide stability. At the ships' destination, cargo is loaded and the ballast water, carrying stowaway organisms, is pumped out. Untreated vessel ballast discharges have introduced more than 180 aquatic invasive species into the Great Lakes. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario border western New York.

The court rejected the arguments of a coalition of large shipping interests that claimed the state had illegally placed further restrictions on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nationwide discharge permit for these vessels.

A ship pumps ballast water out before taking on cargo. (Photo by skybluewaters.org)

In his May 21 ruling, New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert Sackett agreed with the state of New York and dismissed a challenge to permit requirements issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation designed to control discharges of invasive species to the Great Lakes and other waterways by ocean-going vessels.

"This decision is a critical win for New York's right and responsibility to protect our Great Lakes and resources," said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"The court's decision not only defends our state's actions, but affirms our right to take necessary measures to fight the plague of invasive species. Ensuring the continued health of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario is vital to our quality of life, our economic growth and our environment."

"This decision is a critical win for New York's right and responsibility to protect our Great Lakes and resources," said Cuomo. "The court's decision not only defends our state's actions, but affirms our right to take necessary measures to fight the plague of invasive species. Ensuring the continued health of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario is vital to our quality of life, our economic growth and our environment."

In July 2008, Cuomo, together with five other attorneys general from states bordering the Great Lakes and several environmental groups, won a federal court decision confirming that large vessels and other oceangoing freight ships require a permit to discharge ballast water.

Earlier in 2008, New York signed onto a successful amicus brief in support of a Michigan law to control invasive species pollution by vessels. The Michigan law, too, was upheld in federal court, defeating a legal challenge by various shipping companies.

Due to the environmental threat posed by invasive species, lawyers from the Natural Resources Defense Council intervened in the shipping industry lawsuit alongside the state of New York, representing the National Wildlife Federation.

Legal experts at the two environmental groups hail the win as a huge victory for states in the region that have taken an aggressive stand to limit dumping of water containing biological pollution from ocean going vessels.

"These rules don't just protect the ecosystem, they help defend multi-billion dollar tourism, fishing, and recreational boating industries in New York and throughout the Great Lakes," said Thom Cmar, an attorney at NRDC. "New York is facing an alien invasion of its waters."

Marc Smith, state policy manager with National Wildlife Federation, said, "This ruling sends a strong message to other Great Lakes states and the EPA, after 30 years of inaction, to finally slam the door on invasive species by requiring the shipping industry to install effective protections against invasive species."

These discharges are a particularly harmful type of pollution because the invading species are able to reproduce and grow over time, allowing them to overwhelm entire ecosystems.

Zebra mussels in New York's Lake Chatauqua (Photo by Leanne Michelle)

They prey upon native species, causing population declines and harm to commercial and recreational fisheries. Billions of dollars in damage to fisheries, recreation, and public infrastructure is directly attributed to the aquatic invasive species epidemic.

The zebra mussel, introduced into a small area of the Great Lakes in the late 1980s, has propagated into all five Great Lakes and many other North American waterways, reaching densities of up to one million per square yard and causing costly damage to water and power plants by clogging intake pipes.

Invasive viruses and toxins, such as viral hemorrhagic septicemia and Type E botulism, have been implicated in recent large-scale fish and bird die-offs.

Some native species, like unionid clams in the western basin of Lake Erie, are nearly extinct. Small organisms at the base of the food web also have been severely affected.

The devastating effect of invasive species has had direct human implications. A 2001 EPA report indicated that a strain of cholera that killed 10,000 people in Latin America in 1991 was introduced by the bilge water of a Chinese freighter. The strain then came to the United States in the ballast tanks of ships from Latin America, but was detected in oyster and finfish samples in the Alabama port where the ships anchored.

The Department of Agriculture spends millions of dollars each year to combat invasive species. A study by Congress' General Accountability Office estimated that the total annual economic losses and associated costs related to invasive species totals $137 billion - more than double the annual economic damage caused by all natural disasters in the United States.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.