Page 30: of Marine News Magazine (April 2021)

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Feature

Water Treatment © Denys Yelmanov / Adobe Stock

Expert

Advice:

New Ballast

Water Guide

By Tom Ewing f you and your crew are facing questions about bal- and ballast exchange. Critically, discharge is transitioning last water management (BWM) and related regulatory to stricter controls, i.e., discharge needs to meet U.S. EPA deadlines, it would be worth your while to download water quality standards and compliance needs to be via the a new (January 2021) “Ballast Water Management U.S. Coast Guard’s so-called “type-approved” systems.

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Systems User Guide,” an extensive, in-depth look at evaluat- This topic is additionally timely now because in Octo- ing, selecting and installing a BWM system. The guide was ber 2020, USEPA published its proposed rule—“Vessel published by MARAD and Glosten for the Ship Operations Incidental Discharge National Standards of Perfor-

Cooperative Program (SOCP). It is geared primarily toward mance”—standards required by the 2018 Vessel Incidental

U.S.-? ag operators in domestic and international trade. Discharge Act (VIDA). As this is written, EPA’s draft is still

As most mariners know, BWM, overseen federally by U.S. under agency review.

EPA and the Coast Guard, includes a number of activities. Importantly, EPA’s draft retains existing discharge stan-

BWM can include treatment, reporting and recordkeeping dards, set in previous iterations of water pollution policy. 30 | MN April 2021