MARAD helps to fund Mobile Ballast Water Testing Facility. The Maritime Administration, along with the Maritime Environmental Resource Center and Maryland Port Administration, has dedicated a new facility to study the effectiveness of technology to treat invasive species in ballast water. The Mobile Test Platform is a retrofitted barge that will allow ballast water treatment systems to be evaluated in a natural setting at different locations in the Chesapeake Bay region. MARAD provided $1.2 million to help develop the new facility, which is able to test according to both IMO and US EPA Environmental Technology Verification protocols. MarineNews and Maritime Professional Editor Joseph Keefe attended the dedication ceremony on September 27th.