Taking on Water

Ships dock at ports in Virginia everyday, the same way they do all over the world. Carrier ships unload their cargo, passengers step on and off of cruise ships, and people take their pleasure vessels for a ride. Water traffic pollution is not the primary thought on many people’s minds, rather many people think of how to prevent nonpoint pollution of waterways from on road traffic. The water traffic pollution I refer to does not involve oils or chemicals - it deals with invasive species.

Pumping out of ballast water is something that many ships can do. Water is pumped into ballast tanks in the boat to help create a more stable ride. What a lot of people don’t think about is what else is in that water. Import ships from all over the world come into ports in the Chesapeake Bay and may offload unknown cargo as they empty their tanks at the dock. For example, a ship takes on water in China and comes to port in the Bay. The ship’s crew waits until the ship is docked and then they remember to empty their ballast water. The water is pumped into our estuary, and anything else (including larval stages of foreign organisms) in the ballast tanks goes overboard. The Federal government and our state have strict policies on the discharge of ballast water in Virginia waters to prevent the development of invasive species.

An invasive species in the Bay that scientists believe came from the uptake of ballast water off of China is Rapa venosa, the veined rapa whelk. The first whelk in the Bay was discovered in 1998 and has quickly and efficiently populated the Bay. The Bay’s benthic habitat and the whelk’s thick shell allow it to live at biotic potential. It has a tolerance for a wide range of temperatures, salinity, pollution, and dissolved oxygen concentrations. This whelk feeds on different species of mollusks, including the native Virginia oyster: Crassostrea virginica. If the population size of this whelk becomes too large, it may overtake the oyster population and other native species and push them to unrecoverable levels. This organism alone has the potential to destroy a large portion of the benthic habitat in the Bay the same way it has done in the Black Sea and other saltwater bodies around the world.

Federal and Virginia laws give suitable locations for the pumping out of ballast water that are clear and concise. They specifically state when and where ships are allowed to empty their bilge water in hopes of protecting our water. The problems with these laws come from not being able to enforce them effectively. Monitoring every ship and vessel that enters waters of Virginia to make sure that no foreign material is introduced is impossible. In my opinion, I believe that following these laws is not a big of a deal for vessels and with some planning on the captain’s part the laws can effectively be followed. I understand that some ships may pump out a little too close to land and that many people do not have environmental protection on their mind all the time. What I do not understand is how ships at berth can say they don’t care and dump foreign water because it was too much of a hassle to get that water pumped to a land tank. Is the hassle of attaching a hose to the discharge pipe too much to do to try to keep a habitat pure?