U.S. Ballast Water Rules Top Concerns
"U.S. Ballast Water Rules Top Concerns," first appeared in Fairplay (http://www.fairplay.co.uk) on January 5, 2012.
Shipowners doing business in the U.S. will be keeping close tabs on several regulations that have been years in the making and are scheduled to take effect in 2012.
Of these, new ballast water standards are expected to hit owners’ wallets hardest because, to meet tighter rules, shipowners will have to spend money on expensive new equipment. The U.S. Coast Guard rules, currently under review by the Office of Management and Budget, are expected to be released in the early part of 2012.
“We don’t anticipate any surprises,” Jeanne Grasso, an attorney and partner at the Washington DC office of Blank Rome, told Fairplay.
Grasso and others expect the U.S. Coast Guard version of the rules to closely follow ballast water standards already in place at the IMO, which are mirrored by standards recently released for public comment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under its Vessel General Permit, which includes provisions for ballast water.
The EPA rules would require shipowners to limit vessel discharges to fewer than 10 living organisms/m³, for organisms of 50µm or larger. For organisms of 10-50µm, discharge must include fewer than 10/ml of ballast water.
Awaiting Approval
The U.S. Coast Guard Reauthorization for 2012 , which passed the House of Representatives but is still to be approved in the Senate, includes several provisions, including ballast water, that affect the maritime industry and could end up included in the final version that is signed into law.
One is a provision barring any classification society that classifies vessels flagged by Iran, North Korea, North Sudan, or Syria from also classifying U.S.-flagged vessels. The provision “would level the playing field”, a Capitol Hill staff member told Fairplay, as societies other than ABS—which has federal authority to cover U.S. ships—would have to either stop classifying U.S. ships or stop classifying ships from the four countries.
“We have some members who serve Iran,” World Shipping Council president Chris Koch confirmed to Fairplay, but he would not comment on how such a requirement could affect his box liner members.
For 2012, non-U.S. shipowners are also anticipating the first-phase roll-out of the North American Emissions Control area, in which the 1% sulphur limit in fuel, currently in place in Europe, becomes enforceable in the US and Canada. This is due on August 1.