All Ships’ Ballast Water Checked in Great Lakes Seaway

The Great Lakes Ballast Water Working Group (BWWG) released its 2015 Summary of Great Lakes Seaway Ballast Water Management activities Thursday.

During 2015, 100 percent of vessels bound for the Great Lakes Seaway from outside the Exclusive Economic Zone received a ballast water management exam. In total, the BWWG assessed all 8,361 ballast tanks on the 455 vessels that transited during the 2015 navigation season.

The Great Lakes Seaway Ballast Water Working Group is a binational collection of representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, Transport Canada - Marine Safety & Security and the Canadian St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. The group’s mandate is to develop, enhance, and coordinate binational compliance and enforcement efforts to reduce the introduction of aquatic invasive species via ballast water and residuals.

This is the seventh consecutive year that BWWG agencies ensured the examination of 100 percent of ballast tanks entering the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the group anticipates continued high ship-compliance rates for the 2016 navigation season.