Results of Shipboard Approval Tests of Ballast Water Treatment Systems in Freshwater

The U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (USCG RDC) tasked the Great Ships Initiative (GSI) with implementing the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program s Draft Generic Protocol for the Verification of Ballast Water Treatment Technology in Shipboard Installations, version 5.2, (ETV DSP) on board an operating commercial vessel to identify areas of possible improvement. ETV DSP implementation included use of a prototype Shipboard Filter Skid (p3SFS), which the ETV DSP incorporates as an optional sampling approach. A secondary objective of Project 41012 was to evaluate, on a limited basis, the biological efficacy and environmental soundness of a prototype ballast water management system (BWMS). Four test cycles took place on board a Great Lakes self-unloading bulk freighter, the Motor Vessel Indiana Harbor, with the prototype BWMS active during two of them. Overall GSI found both the ETV DSP and p3SFS to be feasible and promising approaches to shipboard validation of prospective BWMSs, and identified specific ways to improve them. The prototype BWMS operated during these tests reduced the densities of live plankton in the Indiana Harbor s ballast tanks, but the treated discharges did not meet International Maritime Organization (IMO) standards in these tests.
The original document contains color images. Prepared in collaboration with the Great Ships Initiative, Northeast-Midwest Institute, Washington, DC. Sponsored in part by DHS.