Public Scoping Meeting On The Environmental Impact Statement For The Ballast Water Discharge Standards Rulemaking

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5 PROGRAMMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
6 FOR
7 BALLAST WATER DISCHARGE STANDARDS
8
9 Public Hearing
10 Norfolk, Virginia
11 November 3, 2003
12 11:30 a.m.
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15 Present: Bradley McKitrick, NEPA Coordinator
16 Lieutenant Commander Kathy Moore, USCG
17 Kathy Hurld
18 Deborah Nagle, EPA representative
19 Richard Everett
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1 LT. CMDR. MOORE: This is a public
2 meeting that we are holding here, Coast Guard and EPA
3 sponsored. We're going to be looking at some
4 environmental issues associated with the ballast
5 water discharge standard. First, as a couple of
6 administrative remarks, if you during a break need a
7 rest room, leave the room, head to your left, go to
8 the windows, head to your left again, go all the way
9 to the sailboat, make a left again and the rest rooms
10 are in the hallway on the right. In addition I would
11 ask that you put cell phones and pagers on silent or
12 vibrate or off. That way we can work uninterrupted.
13 The Coast Guard is here with EPA as a
14 cooperating agency, with NOAA and Fish and Wildlife
15 Service executing its environmental analysis
16 responsibilities under NEPA to look at the issues
17 associated with the ballast water discharge standard.
18 There is quite a team of people here. My
19 name is Lieutenant Commander Kathy Moore. I'm with
20 the Coast Guard's Aquatics Nuisance Species Program.
21 Also here from EPA is Deborah Nagle, and she's going
22 to say a few words.
23 MS. NAGLE: As she said, my name is
24 Deborah Nagle, and I'm within the Permits Division in
25 our wastewater permits -- Office of Wastewater
0003
1 Management, and then also we have with us today our
2 sister office, which is the Office of Wetlands, Oceans
3 and Watershed, and our two groups have been working
4 cooperatively -- that's a hard word to say this
5 morning -- with the Coast Guard on this whole issue of
6 invasive species, as they call it, the aquatic
7 nonindigenous species, in particular those that are
8 discharged through ballast water as they enter into
9 our nation's water. We at EPA are very, very
10 concerned about this particular issue and problem in
11 our nation's waters, and that's why we teamed up with
12 the Coast Guard to work with them as they proceed in
13 their process of identifying what the environmental
14 impacts are and what should be done for them.
15 Thanks.
16 LT. CMDR. MOORE: I want to focus
17 everybody that this is a public scoping of an
18 environmental standard, and we're going to use a
19 workshop format to capture as many ideas and consensus
20 on priorities, if that's possible, trying to capture a
21 lot of ideas. What we're going to do is have a series
22 of presentations that follow one right after the other
23 right now for about the next hour. I'm going to start
24 out describing the Coast Guard's program for aquatic
25 nuisance species, where we are in the regulatory
0004
1 process primarily. Then we are going to have Mr.
2 McKitrick, Brad McKitrick from the Coast Guard, he's
3 going to be doing essentially a little NEPA
4 introduction, in other words describing the NEPA
5 analysis process and where that fits in with our
6 regulatory responsibilities, and then finally Doctor
7 Richard Everett is going to do a discussion of the
8 alternatives, and then Brad McKitrick is going to
9 come back and do a quick discussion on some of the
10 environmental issues, areas of environmental concern.
11 I want to focus everybody that we are not
12 scoping environmental issues at this meeting that are
13 associated with the application of technologies that
14 may be used to accomplish the standard. The standard,
15 in other words those organisms that are allowed or not
16 allowed as a result of the application of a ballast
17 water discharge standard, that is the focus of our
18 effort today. The NEPA analysis for technologies will
19 be done, but it will be done in a process where each
20 technology will be evaluated and approved. So
21 although it's very difficult to separate those two
22 out, the environmental impacts associated with the
23 discharge standard is what we're focusing on here
24 today.
25 We are going to present some specific
0005
1 information on the alternatives and the environmental
2 issues and then we're going to break up into groups.
3 Our hope is that there will be enough people here to
4 break up into multiple groups, but if not we'll
5 still reconvene as a discussion group, a facilitative
6 discussion group, and what we're going to ask is
7 through a discussion amongst the participants that a
8 list of concerns associated with the alternatives and
9 a list of concerns associated with the environmental
10 issues would be developed and then we'll come back
11 here to this room and do a report out from that
12 group's work. In other words, while the presentations
13 are going to be captured with the recorder, the group
14 discussion would not be captured by the recorder, but
15 the results of that would be reported out in such a
16 way that we can get it on the administrative record,
17 and then following that we're going to allow --
18 although it hasn't typically taken that long, we're
19 going to allow an hour and 45 minutes for that
20 discussion to take place and those ideas to be
21 generated.
22 Following that we're going to go ahead
23 and do the report out, and then after that we're going
24 to use the public comment, essentially the mike in
25 front of the group opportunity for people to do a
0006
1 three-minute verbal comment. Now, if you're not
2 comfortable in doing it in front of the group, during
3 the breakout session it is possible to come and
4 approach the recorder and do it with the recorder, so
5 there are two opportunities, two different venues, if
6 you will, for registering a verbal comment.
7 While you were signing in you also had
8 the opportunity to pick up forms to submit a written
9 comment. We can take those written comments today or
10 you can develop them and send them in to the docket
11 later at your convenience or you can do both. I mean,
12 that's also a possibility. So there are a variety of
13 ways that we're using to capture as much input as
14 possible, and we're going to really ask that you go
15 ahead and provide that input and work concertedly with
16 us to do a good job, to do a good process.
17 I'm going to begin by overviewing the
18 Coast Guard's nonindigenous species program. The
19 reason why we're doing aquatic nuisance species, the
20 concerns that we have, most of these are familiar to
21 you. They have ecosystem impacts. They've been
22 identified as the second greatest threat to
23 threatening endangered species, behind habitat loss.
24 A great deal of the reason for that is that they cause
25 habitat degradation. They can interfere with the food
0007
1 sources. They can be predators for threatening
2 endangered species. They can be predators for other
3 species. They can interfere with fragile genetic
4 diversity in terms of threatening endangered
5 populations. They can disturb habitat. They
6 can have a great number of ecosystem impacts.
7 In addition to those there is the long
8 list of socioeconomic impacts. Among those are
9 damages to infrastructure. They can damage the
10 ability for coastal infrastructures to conform
11 properly. They can disrupt services. They can damage
12 recreational and commercial fisheries and interfere
13 with the recreational use of waterways and water
14 systems. So this is primarily the reasons that we're
15 attacking this problem.
16 We've identified ballast water as an
17 area of concern. There are a number of reasons for
18 that, and they are revealed in part by the increase in
19 the amount of ballast water and the number of coastal
20 invasions attributed to ballast water over time. In
21 looking carefully here, I think the most important
22 feature of this graph is the growth in the light blue
23 bar, and I'll mention that this last length of bar is
24 an estimate, but the important thing to remember here
25 is this contribution is due to a variety of factors.
0008
1 Global commerce increasing has had an increasing
2 effect on the amount of goods transported by ships.
3 In addition to that the actual ship size has
4 increased. Increases in technology, advancements
5 in technology have caused trips -- the transits to be
6 shortened, and that's actually increased the
7 survivability of some of these species within
8 ballast -- entrained within ballast water, and in
9 addition some of the receiving ecosystems have been
10 improved as a result of other water quality
11 improvement efforts and so we have more favorable
12 conditions for organisms to survive on discharge,
13 and then the actual environment within the ballast
14 tanks in some cases has been improved, which has
15 helped the survival rate of these species. So a
16 number of reasons have contributed to the growth in
17 the number of coastal invasions attributed to ballast
18 water, and some of these other vectors have had some
19 efforts to reduce them. So this is the primary reason
20 we're focused on ballast water.
21 How much ballast water are we talking
22 about? Twenty-one billion cubic meters per year was
23 the number that came out of the 1996 shipping study
24 that was done by Carlton and his support staff. We've
25 done -- the Coast Guard has done an analysis in
0009
1 association with the mandatory ballast water rule
2 making, and we basically captured the data in a
3 slightly different way. We took all the vessel
4 arrivals into U.S. waters. We developed ballast water
5 capacity information by a number of ship types, like I
6 think it's 22 ship types, and then we evaluated the
7 maximum ballast available for discharge for all of
8 those arrivals over a two-year period, and what we
9 ended up with was a number much closer to two
10 billion cubic meters a year of potential for discharge
11 into the U.S., still a very large number, but we're
12 pretty confident this is much closer to a number that
13 is actually attributed to discharge ballast water.
14 What is our regulatory authority? Where
15 does that come from? The very first invasive species
16 focused rule typically focused on ballast water in the
17 Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control
18 Act of 1990. It gave us the authority to establish
19 the mandatory program that's currently in the Great
20 Lakes. It also gave us some of the definitions we use
21 today for mid ocean ballast water exchange, including
22 empty refill and three times volume for those ballast
23 exchanges being used with a flow through process. We
24 also have a series of alternatives listed that would
25 be approved by the Coast Guard as optional management
0010
1 opportunities.
2 In 1996 congress passed the National
3 Invasive Species Act, which did not necessarily change
4 the mandatory regime in the Great Lakes, but it
5 created the opportunity or the instructions to the
6 Coast Guard to create a first aid voluntary program
7 for the waters of the U.S. similar to those in the
8 Great Lakes and the Hudson River and have that program
9 evaluated. There was an emphasis on nonregulatory
10 solutions at that time, so there was no requirement
11 to go mandatory immediately until the voluntary
12 program had been evaluated. We did do that evaluation
13 and learned some valuable lessons, and this law also
14 established the data collection responsibilities for
15 the National Ballast Information Clearinghouse
16 established by the Smithsonian Environmental Research
17 Center to track ballast water management information
18 and patterns.
19 The lessons learned from the report to
20 congress is that you really can't have a mandatory
21 program that requires reporting without a penalty
22 feature. To no one's great surprise, only those --
23 only a fraction complied with the mandatory
24 reporting, was around 30 percent. That is not
25 sufficient to really project industry practices
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1 across the board so the numbers below are approximates
2 based on that 30 percent reporting, but what we did
3 learn for those that reported, 87 percent were
4 following the guidelines of conducting an exchange on
5 discharging, and those that attributed the ability not
6 to do an exchange or the inability to do an exchange
7 due to safety reasons was on the order of five
8 percent.
9 As a result of this data revealed in this
10 report, the secretary made a determination that we
11 needed to go mandatory with our voluntary program
12 and we also needed to implement penalties. This
13 regulatory process that we are completing is not
14 necessarily done in a vacuum. The Coast Guard has
15 responsibilities under NISA to participate in the
16 negotiations of an international treaty. That
17 treaty has been in the works for 17 sessions of
18 the International Maritime Organization's Marine
19 Environment Protection Committee, and we are at a
20 stage now where the invention language is at a place
21 where there has been a decision to proceed to
22 diplomatic conference. The purpose of that conference
23 is to finalize the provisions of that treaty and move
24 to a signature. That's going to take place this
25 coming February, February, 2004, and probably the
0012
1 primary linkage between our international negotiating
2 process and our domestic rule making effort is that
3 the ballast water exchange takes place in both until
4 the ballast water discharge standards are
5 implemented.
6 With respect to ballast water regulatory
7 projects that the Coast Guard currently has ongoing,
8 penalties for not reporting ballast water management
9 has been proposed this past January. We expect very
10 much to go final with this rule this winter. The
11 mandatory ballast water management program, and again
12 that is focused on the rest of the country separate
13 from the Great Lakes, that rule came out -- proposed
14 rule came out in July of this past year, in 2003, and
15 we expect by spring or around spring to go final with
16 those rules, and then the effort that we're here today
17 working is ballast water discharge standards. One of
18 the very first steps was the notice of intent to do an
19 EIS that was published on September 26th, 2003. The
20 comment period for this notice of intent closes
21 December 26th of this year, so we're -- essentially
22 you have the opportunity through December 26th to add
23 comments to the docket. So if you don't do so today
24 the opportunity continues.
25 Why is there a need for a ballast water
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1 discharge standard? One of the very important things
2 that we recognize, which we assumed for a long time is
3 the case but having numbers was even more startling,
4 was that sixty percent of the vessels in terms of
5 their last leg of their voyage into U.S. waters from
6 outside the U.S., EEZ, 60 percent of those vessels did
7 not travel 200 miles offshore in order to be able to
8 be in a region of ocean to be able to conduct an
9 exchange, so room constraints prevent over 60 percent
10 of the vessels from conducting an exchange on their
11 inbound transit to U.S. waters. In addition to that,
12 vessels without ballast, that is those vessels loaded
13 with cargo, frequently cannot exchange. In addition,
14 weather and safety exemptions remain in place with
15 respect to the national program, and then, of course,
16 ballast water effectiveness has been found to vary
17 considerably based on vessel type, based on other
18 conditions, structures, tank structures, a variety of
19 reasons, so ballast water exchange is inadequate for
20 the long term.
21 What are the guiding principles for a
22 ballast water discharge standard? Well, these
23 are three of some guiding principles, but they're
24 certainly the most important to keep in mind for
25 today's discussion, that it has to be based on
0014
1 science. It has to be environmentally productive. In
2 other words, it has to be established at a level to
3 reduce the risk of invasions of nonindigenous species
4 or introductions of nonindigenous species into U.S.
5 waters, and it's also got to be enforceable. In other
6 words, there are feasibility and enforceability
7 concerns with a ballast water discharge standard.
8 Where is the Coast Guard program going?
9 We'll continue this domestic rule making effort,
10 obviously. We'll continue to participate in the
11 international convention. Following the diplomatic
12 conference in February there is more work that
13 would need to be done for supporting pieces of the
14 international convention. There are a series of
15 guidelines that must be completed, so we'll continue
16 to do that. We have several R&D efforts both for the
17 development of enforcement and compliance evaluation
18 tools for ballast water exchange and ballast water
19 treatment as well as to evaluate treatment systems,
20 and we will continue to coordinate with other
21 stakeholders with respect to aquatic nuisance species
22 in general, particularly across the government and
23 with other stakeholders. The Coast Guard participates
24 on the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force. We
25 provide a policy liaison to the National Invasive
0015
1 Species Council, and those as well as a variety of
2 other stakeholder groups are where we participate.
3 The effort today that we're focused on is
4 the environmental impact statement that will accompany
5 the development of our ballast water discharge
6 standard, and under the Council of Environmental
7 Quality regulations that govern the development of an
8 environmental impact statement there is this
9 definition of a cooperating agency, and what that
10 does is, the agency serves to support the lead agency
11 and provides expertise and review capability, and
12 we're very fortunate in the sense that the Coast Guard
13 does not have to go down this environmental impact
14 statement road alone. We have with us on this
15 cooperating agencies, EPA, and they are well
16 represented here today, as well we have the Fish and
17 Wildlife Service and NOAA, National Oceanic &
18 Atmospheric Administration.
19 I'm going to leave this up there as we
20 transition to our next speaker. There are a variety
21 of Web sites available that talk specifically to
22 aquatic nuisance species, some of which through the
23 Coast Guard's efforts, some of which to rule making
24 and other activities. I want to encourage you that if
25 you can't grab them -- copy them down off this screen,
0016
1 there is also information in your information package
2 and your scoping packet with respect to some Web
3 sites. These Web sites also have links to other Web
4 sites, whether government or nongovernment, and they
5 are fruitful if you are looking to learn more about
6 this issue, and from here I would like to introduce
7 Mr. Brad McKitrick. He is going to talk to you more
8 about specifically the NEPA process.
9 MR. MCKITRICK: Good afternoon. My name
10 is Brad McKitrick of the U.S. Coast Guard. I'm the
11 NEPA coordinator for this project. Again, I would
12 like to reiterate the Web site has a lot of -- that
13 previous slide that Commander Moore had up there, that
14 information is in your packets that you have so if you
15 didn't have time to scribble all that fine print down
16 it is in your packet.
17 In 1969 then President Nixon signed
18 into law the National Environmental Policy Act.
19 Twenty-five years or so later the EPA did a study
20 that -- or actually the Council of Environmental
21 Quality, CEQ, which is the executive office under the
22 White House that provides guidelines, NEPA guidelines,
23 for other federal agencies, they did a study, and some
24 of the conclusions and some of the statements are as
25 follows: Congress envisions that federal agencies
0017
1 would use NEPA as a planning tool and integrate
2 environmental concerns directly into policies and into
3 programs, and it concluded with this statement, it has
4 established environmental quality as an essential
5 component of the federal policy making and project
6 planning.
7 So where does NEPA apply? NEPA applies
8 in major federal actions. And what are major federal
9 actions? Actions that might have significant effects
10 on the environment, not only natural environment but
11 human environment, and this could take the form of
12 adoption or approval of regulations, formal plans,
13 programs or specific projects. In this case for these
14 ballast water discharge standards it's a regulation,
15 and the regulations would be establishing ballast
16 water discharge standards that are affecting the
17 introduction and spread of nonindigenous species via
18 ballast water discharge.
19 This is a very complex slide which breaks
20 all the rules for PowerPoint, but it kind of gives you
21 an idea of where -- a feeling for how the NEPA process
22 goes. It's very complex. You identify the first
23 three boxes on the very top of the slide, identify the
24 purpose, which Commander Moore has already described.
25 The alternatives we'll get into shortly, in the next
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1 PowerPoint presentation, and then you evaluate the
2 environmental impact.
3 Through this decision tree, flowing down,
4 on the bottom four you have the category exclusion and
5 environmental assessment and environmental impact
6 statement and then you implement a decision. If you
7 break it down a little more, part of the NEPA process,
8 category exclusion, environmental assessment and
9 environmental impact statement, you see the red arrow
10 going to your right. As you go further, if the
11 decision is to use an environmental impact statement,
12 that's the most comprehensive form of NEPA analysis
13 you can do on a project. That really goes into
14 everything, whereas category exclusion, you have a
15 minor checklist, a very rapid, very minor analysis
16 done. So what I wanted to show here is that the level
17 of NEPA we're doing on this project is the most
18 comprehensive there is in the NEPA process.
19 Why prepare an EIS? To ensure
20 stakeholders and the agencies examine and document the
21 impact of proposed action sufficiently, identify and
22 investigate reasonable alternatives, describe possible
23 mitigation to any impact of the proposed action,
24 involve the public and agencies, such as we're doing
25 today, and respond to those comments, and hopefully
0019
1 we'll get feedback from you during the course of this
2 day, some of the concerns or issues that you might
3 have.
4 And not only is it an environmental
5 impact statement, we've added a new word. We've added
6 programmatic environmental impact statement. It
7 doesn't degrade the environmental impact statement at
8 all, but this provides a more broader scope analysis.
9 Based on the CEQ regulations, a PEIS is prepared for
10 broad federal action, such as an adoption of agency
11 programs or regulations, and in this case the ballast
12 water discharge standard is a regulation, and it's
13 very broad in scope because it covers the breadth of
14 the United States.
15 So what will the PEIS address?
16 Alternatives such as no action, alternatives for
17 ballast water standards, which these will be further
18 discussed in Doctor Everett's presentation next, what
19 affected environments we are looking at, and in lies
20 the actual environmental impact of the ballast water
21 standards on the environment.
22 How does the PEIS process get initiated?
23 September of this year the Coast Guard put out a
24 notice of intent to publish, and this basically
25 started the scoping process we're in right now,
0020
1 started the NEPA process, and the proposed regulatory
2 action being the establishment of ballast water
3 standards.
4 This kind of goes hand in hand, this
5 slide, with the one -- two or three previous ones with
6 the complexity. This shows you what steps are used in
7 the PEIS process. You can see the third step down is
8 where we are right now, the scoping and early public
9 involvement. We've already put out the notice of
10 intent, and now we're in the scoping process. We're
11 going to take this information and follow the steps
12 until we come to the end of the road, which is the
13 decision, which basically tells the public what action
14 we're taking.
15 So public scoping, what is the
16 objective? Early and open process for public input.
17 Scoping of the PEIS basically is determining the range
18 of impacts and alternatives involved with the PEIS and
19 involve all stakeholders in the decision making
20 process such as we're doing today.
21 As you can tell by this slide, we've been
22 on the road. This is our fourth stop. We're thinking
23 about having tee shirts made up, but we have one more
24 to go. Today is our fourth. We'll be in D.C. on
25 Friday. So the purpose of this slide is to show this
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1 is not a one-stop, you know, show. We want to go
2 throughout the nation with the slide show. We want
3 to take all the public input we can get from all the
4 areas who think they might have some involvement with
5 the invasive species issues, and so we've been on this
6 road trip to try to gather all the public input we
7 can to make sure we have a valuable environmental
8 impact statement.
9 So what happens after the scoping
10 process? What happens when we leave here today
11 and we get your input? We draft what they call a
12 programmatic and -- programmatic environmental
13 statement that addresses the issues raised during the
14 scoping process, such as what you're going to provide
15 us today. It will analyze the proposed action, the
16 alternatives, and all of this is done in the guise
17 of the Coast Guard guidelines as gotten from the CEQ
18 regulations as to how to go about doing the
19 environmental impact statement.
20 Once the draft PEIS is completed and
21 circulated for public comment, so this is not your
22 only opportunity to have some input into the whole
23 process, there is a notice of availability that's
24 published in the Federal Register. They are mailed to
25 agencies or stakeholders. There is a docket
0022
1 management system you can go into, that the PEIS draft
2 will be in that system. Also it will placed in Web
3 sites, and I believe EPA and Coast Guard Web sites are
4 in your packet, your scoping information packet, so
5 you can actually go to those Web sites, either
6 download the document or just read it right on-line.
7 Once the draft PEIS is out, you have a public comment
8 period of 45 days to comment on what we have proposed
9 and what analysis we've done on this ballast water
10 discharge standard.
11 You have 45 days to respond to that as
12 to yes, no, you forgot something or you didn't look
13 at this one issue here or didn't look at this one
14 alternative here, and if the need arises that we need
15 to have a public hearing such as we're having today,
16 although this is really not a hearing but an
17 opportunity in a forum such as this to get your input
18 on a face-to-face basis, if there is a need to have
19 that done we'll see that it's done.
20 MR. STEWART: Could I ask a question?
21 Are the public comments posted? After these meetings
22 happen and public comments are submitted, is that
23 published on the Web site?
24 MR. MCKITRICK: We will put -- yes,
25 they will be on the Web site. Once the public
0023
1 comments come back on the draft PEIS, they're
2 reviewed. The Coast Guard and cooperating agencies
3 will respond to these comments. When I say we'll
4 respond to these comments, we'll actually respond to
5 these comments in the final PEIS in writing. I know
6 its availability is published in the Federal
7 Register. The public has another 30-day opportunity
8 to read what the final PEIS looks like. Once that
9 public comment period is over with we go to a record
10 of decision, a ROD. This is also published in the
11 Federal Register. This is done 30 days after the
12 final PEIS is made available to the public. The Coast
13 Guard at that time and the cooperating agencies will
14 make a decision as to what the alternatives will be
15 and whatever mitigation measures we need to take based
16 on the decision we've made.
17 Where does NEPA fit in the regulatory
18 process? Two years ago we did an advance notice
19 of proposed rule making that talked about and actually
20 requested comments also on the ballast water discharge
21 standard. We had public input at that point. You see
22 the left hand box, far left, is NEPA. That's where we
23 are right now. We're seeking public input. We had a
24 standards -- ballast water discharge standards
25 workshop several years, getting input as to the way we
0024
1 would actually develop ballast water discharge
2 standards. Regulatory analysis will be done based on
3 the ballast water discharge rule, standards rule, how
4 that will flow, the preferred alternative, which will
5 go into the notice of proposed rule making, and then
6 at the notice of proposed rule making we again get the
7 opportunity for public input on the rule making
8 process itself, on the rule, and then we'll go into
9 the final rule.
10 Doctor Everett.
11 MR. EVERETT: Thanks, Brad.
12 I'm going to talk now a little bit about
13 the alternatives. As both Commander Moore and Mr.
14 McKitrick have explained, the purpose of this meeting
15 is to solicit public comment on the environmental
16 issues that will attend selecting a specific ballast
17 water discharge standard and also getting public input
18 on what those environmental issues are that we need
19 to be paying attention to during the NEPA process.
20 Right now there are three alternatives that we have
21 conceptually identified. The first of these
22 alternatives is also the most stringent, and this
23 would essentially entail sterilization of ballast
24 water. We've written this out at this point just to
25 specify that under alternative one all organisms
0025
1 larger than about a tenth of a micron in size would
2 have to be either killed or removed.
3 Alternative two is a much broader group
4 of potential actual alternatives. Under alternative
5 two we would actually establish maximum acceptable
6 discharge concentrations for various types of
7 potential nonindigenous species, and I'll show you in
8 a few minutes how this is actually a range of possible
9 alternatives rather than a specific one in and of
10 itself.
11 The third conceptual alternative for --
12 that we're -- that we have to look at is the no action
13 alternative. In all federal rule making processes
14 there is always a no action alternative because that
15 is always an alternative for the federal government,
16 and that is to not take action on a particular issue.
17 In this case it would mean that we would not establish
18 a ballast water discharge standard. We have to
19 incorporate that into our analysis.
20 I'm going to skip through most of this
21 slide except for that bottom bullet, which is the
22 assumptions. One of the assumptions underlying our
23 approach to the development of a ballast water
24 discharge standard is that compliance with the
25 standard will also entail or require -- I want to make
0026
1 sure this is very clear, will also require compliance
2 with all other applicable discharge requirements that
3 may be in place. These may be state requirements.
4 These may be local. Establishing a ballast water
5 discharge standard will not in a sense trump all
6 other -- all other potential discharge requirements.
7 At the present time NISA, National
8 Invasive Species Act, is very clear in leaving to
9 the states the right to develop their own discharge
10 requirements. Our hope is to have a ballast water
11 discharge standard with respect to the discharge of
12 organisms that will obviate the perceived need on the
13 part of the states to develop their own ballast water
14 discharge standard. States and localities, however,
15 may have other discharge concerns, for instance more
16 traditional water quality concerns related to chemical
17 constituencies in the water that's discharged, ballast
18 water. Our ballast water discharge standard will not
19 address those chemical aspects.
20 Now, so we're looking at these
21 alternatives and we're looking at the environmental
22 impacts of the alternatives. As Commander Moore
23 mentioned, we're not looking -- at this point in the
24 analysis we're not looking at the environmental
25 impacts that may attend the use of a particular
0027
1 treatment system to meet the ballast water discharge
2 standard. What we are looking at are the potential
3 environmental impacts that may attend the selection
4 of a specific standard, and as sort of a conceptual
5 way to think about this, I've tried to use this small
6 schematic. On the left there where I show in, ballast
7 water that is taken up by a ship contains a large
8 variety of different kinds of organisms, different --
9 present in different concentrations. One might think
10 about a standard as if it was a filter in a sense, and
11 particularly any standard that is somehow or another
12 less stringent than total sterilization of the water
13 because in effect if we select something -- as a
14 standard something less than sterilization, we are --
15 we'll be saying that it will be all right to discharge
16 some fraction of the organisms that are present in
17 ballast water, and that is shown on the right where
18 the out is by two different conceptual alternatives,
19 and in this circumstance those two alternatives, A
20 and B, release different concentrations of organisms.
21 They might be different compositions in terms of their
22 taxonomic characteristics, in terms of the types of
23 organisms that are also released. So that's the level
24 that we're looking at right now in terms of
25 environmental impacts.
0028
1 What are the environmental impacts that
2 we -- that we may have to face given that the standard
3 that we select will allow different fractions of the
4 organisms that are in ballast water to be actually
5 introduced? These impacts may occur at different --
6 may occur in different ways. They may affect the
7 actual resources affected. In other words, different
8 standards, different alternative standards, may affect
9 different resources, but they also may have different
10 types of effects. Even if they, for instance, impact
11 all potential resources, the type of effect on
12 different resources may be different. So we're
13 looking for input from the public on these kinds of
14 issues, what are the potential resources that may be
15 affected, what are the kinds of effects that may --
16 that may attend the selection of different
17 alternatives.
18 Now, to go into these alternatives a
19 little more, in a little more depth, as I said, the
20 first alternative is essentially the sterilization of
21 ballast water. For those of you not used to this
22 scale of measurement, a micron is one-millionth of a
23 meter so it's quite a small size. This standard, if
24 met, would essentially remove or inactive all
25 membrane-bound organisms, virtually all bacteria, and
0029
1 it would also address many of the viruses which are
2 not membrane bound but which would also be captured,
3 if you will, with this standard.
4 Alternative two, as I said, is sort of
5 more of a broad group of potential alternatives. Now,
6 these all fall within the same conceptual format.
7 Alternative two would address three main groups of
8 organisms, and these are broken down into these
9 different groups because of essentially fundamental
10 differences in biological characteristics. The first
11 group, the macrofauna, are all multi-cellular
12 organisms, and it includes fish and invertebrate
13 zooplankton, and it includes many of the kinds of
14 organisms that you are probably familiar with as
15 nonindigenous species, such as zebra mussels, green
16 crab, rapa whelk and so on. Most of these organisms
17 are larger than 50 microns in size during virtually
18 all of their different life history stages.
19 The next group is -- are the protists,
20 and we're concerned there with both heterotrophic and
21 autotrophic protists. Heterotrophic protists are
22 organisms that eat other things essentially. The
23 autotrophs are protists that can make use of solar
24 energy or chemical energy, and the -- many of you may
25 know these as phytoplankton. These tend to be between
0030
1 ten microns in size and 50 microns in size, although
2 some of them are quite a bit larger, and some examples
3 of these, particularly for phytoplankton, are the red
4 tide organisms or brown tide organisms that produce
5 harmful algal blooms, but it also includes some
6 heterotrophs or some pathogen types, such as giardia,
7 which is a protist, that is, a gut parasite,
8 invertebrates, and, interestingly enough, that has
9 been found in ballast water. That doesn't mean that
10 anybody has ever contacted giardia because it is
11 carried in ballast water, but it is nonetheless known
12 to occur.
13 And the final group are the bacteria and
14 viruses, the microbes, in general smaller than ten
15 microns. An example, again, is salmonella, so the
16 standard would essentially be structured such that
17 these different groups were addressed.
18 The way this would be done is as
19 follows: It would establish maximum acceptable
20 discharge concentrations for these different groups.
21 So, for instance, for the macroplankton, the standard
22 would be raised as no more than a particular number
23 of viable individuals in zooplankton and
24 nekton -- nekton means swimming organisms such as
25 fish -- per unit volume greater than a cutoff size in
0031
1 microns.
2 Now, one thing that just leaps off the
3 screen at you is that there are no specifics given
4 here. We have not identified what the particular
5 number of viable organisms are. We haven't identified
6 what the unit volume that we would be looking at is
7 and we haven't identified what the cutoff size is.
8 That's one of the things that we're looking for
9 input on, and that also carries through to these other
10 components of the standard.
11 For the phytoplankton and other protists,
12 no more -- again, no more than a particular number of
13 viable individuals per unit volume greater than a
14 cutoff size.
15 Now, for the microbes the format is
16 slightly different. Instead of saying a general no
17 more than a total number, the idea here is that we
18 would actually specify indicator species, and there is
19 many reasons for this. Probably the most important
20 one is that many of the bacteria that would be present
21 in ballast water are not essentially manipulatable by
22 us from a research or scientific perspective. There
23 are many, many bacteria and viruses which occur in
24 ballast water that we are not able to culture and
25 thereby determine whether or not they're viable or
0032
1 not, and so rather than frame this part of the
2 standard as a total concentration of bacteria, instead
3 we would look at specific indicator species, and an
4 example of using indicator species in a standard like
5 this is, for instance, the EPA recreational contact
6 standard for bathing waters. That -- that standard,
7 for instance, is expressed as no more than 136
8 enterococci, which is a type of bacteria, per hundred
9 milliliters of water, and so we would express a
10 specific indicator species in the same way in this
11 standard. Some of those indicators might be some of
12 those human pathogens or enteric pathogens, such as
13 enterococci, E. coli, salmonella, but others might be
14 indicator species that were of concern for nonhuman
15 ecosystem components, such as fisheries, finfish or
16 shellfish populations for instance. There are a lot
17 of pathogens that potentially may be carried in
18 ballast water that while not a direct concern for
19 human health could potentially affect other key
20 components of ecosystems, such as fish stock,
21 shellfish stock, coral reefs and so on.
22 So specific concentrations and sizes are
23 not yet established. The public is requested to
24 provide input on these, both on the conceptual
25 approach in terms of our identifying the main groups
0033
1 that we would address, the idea of establishing
2 what are essentially water quality standards or
3 concentration standards, and also the specifics of
4 concentrations and sizes of organisms would be
5 addressed.
6 The third alternative is the no action
7 alternative. As in all federal rule making analyses,
8 we have to consider the alternative of actually not
9 promulgating a regulation. In this case ballast water
10 discharge standards would not be established. That
11 does not mean that there would not be a ballast water
12 management regulatory regime in place. The existing
13 mandatory program in the Great Lakes would continue.
14 The proposed mandatory ballast water management
15 program for the rest of the country would continue to
16 move forward as a rule making process. This would in
17 a sense be the least stringent of the alternatives.
18 What are the ballast water management
19 options that would continue under the no action
20 alternative? Mid ocean ballast water exchange is an
21 option for complying with both the Great Lakes and the
22 proposed national ballast water management programs.
23 There are safety exemptions there. There are
24 feasibility issues there, and there are also -- as
25 Commander Moore pointed out, there are route
0034
1 constraints, very serious route constraints. There
2 are other methods or treatments approved by the Coast
3 Guard that can be used. At this point there are
4 none. Something that's not listed up there is the
5 potential to use a shoreside facility. This is also a
6 possibility to comply with ballast water management
7 regime. There are no shoreside facilities at this
8 point.
9 If the remaining alternatives are to
10 discharge minimal amounts of ballast water for loading
11 operations if a vessel cannot conduct an exchange
12 either because of route constraints or safety
13 considerations, then they -- in the national program
14 they would be allowed to discharge the minimal amount
15 of ballast water necessary to conduct their loading
16 operations. In the Great Lakes that is not an
17 alternative. Vessels that cannot conduct an exchange
18 essentially have their ballast tanks sealed for all
19 intents and purposes so that they cannot discharge
20 water into the Great Lakes, unexchanged water into the
21 Great Lakes.
22 As always an option is to retain ballast
23 water on board. Now, while that might seem sort of
24 fanciful, this idea of retaining ballast water on
25 board, in point of fact, an increasing number of ship
0035
1 designs are being developed which really minimize and
2 in some cases do away with the need, except in
3 emergencies, of actually taking on ballast water and
4 discharging ballast water during loading operations.
5 Ships manage their ballast water internally to achieve
6 the necessary stability, and other than emergencies
7 they don't need to discharge ballast water. It's a
8 fairly small number of vessels at this point but it
9 should increase.
10 The limits to the applicability of
11 exchange, now, just because we have a ballast water
12 management program in place and that there are
13 options, such as ballast water exchange, that are
14 available to ships to meet the requirements doesn't
15 mean that we don't really need to do a standard. As
16 Commander Moore pointed out, more than 60 percent of
17 vessels arriving to the U.S. from outside of the EEZ
18 did so along routes that did not permit them to
19 conduct an exchange more than 200 miles from any
20 shore. This graphic shows this graphically.
21 In looking at all the vessels that came
22 into the U.S. outside of -- from outside the U.S.
23 from the period of 1999 to 2000, the Coast Guard could
24 essentially partition those into 13 different voyage
25 tracks, and the details of the voyage tracks are not
0036
1 all that important. They -- in the top one it's
2 northern Europe to the East Coast of the U.S. The
3 point is that the track that essentially entailed
4 coming to the U.S. but in a way that didn't take you
5 further than 200 miles from shore is track 13, and
6 more than 60 percent of the vessels arriving into the
7 U.S. actually came in via that -- via those routes.
8 An example of this might -- is ships that come up from
9 South America along the Pacific coast, to the Pacific
10 coast of the U.S., don't necessarily move to --
11 conduct that voyage more than 200 miles offshore. In
12 fact most of them actually hug the coast most of that
13 distance, and so there is not a period of time during
14 that voyage in which they're able to conduct an
15 exchange more than 200 miles from the shore. There
16 are many other routes by which vessels come into the
17 U.S. that also have those type of restraints.
18 Now Brad is going to talk a little bit
19 about these environmental issues and the impacts that
20 we are also looking for input on.
21 MR. MCKITRICK: Thank you.
22 You can see what the slide says,
23 potential adverse and beneficial environmental impacts
24 assessed in levels of organisms remaining in discharge
25 ballast water under each alternative. This was
0037
1 expressed, I believe, in Commander Moore's
2 presentation. What we're actually looking at, and
3 that's what is remaining after the discharge from the
4 ship to the water, what are the impacts of those
5 organisms to the environment, but the net balance of
6 the proposed regulatory action's effects on the
7 environment are believed to be significantly
8 beneficial. That's the position the Coast Guard is
9 taking.
10 This is a list of environmental issues
11 that the Coast Guard and the EPA and the cooperating
12 agencies have come up with. These are not cast in
13 stone. These are just something we've looked at and
14 thought of, and we thought these are something we need
15 to analyze as far as the impacts that ballast water
16 discharge might have on this set of environmental
17 issues here. If you go down the line a little bit,
18 you'll see fresh water not only in the Great Lakes and
19 Hudson River but wherever else ships might go and
20 might be around fresh water.
21 Socio-economic, that's really an umbrella
22 term. I think we talked about it early in this
23 presentation. They talk about maritime commence and
24 marine fisheries, commercial fisheries. All those
25 fall underneath socio-economics. Those are areas we
0038
1 would study and analyze and see what the impacts would
2 be from the ballast water discharge standards.
3 One of the things we'll ask you today
4 when you go into the breakout session is to look at
5 these and see if there is anything else we need to
6 add, something we missed, there are some other
7 environmental issues that we might have just
8 overlooked. Finally, and more importantly, is there
9 something on the list that we've generated already
10 that doesn't need to be on the list, that we don't
11 need to spend any time and energy or money in looking
12 at, that we can just remove from the list because
13 there is probably no impact or potential impact to
14 this environmental resource.
15 Ultimately we're requesting your input.
16 As an additional part of this, Doctor Everett has
17 listed out three of what the Coast Guard and EPA and
18 cooperating agencies have come up with. These are
19 proposed. We are looking for additional alternatives
20 that you-all have to provide us, environmental
21 concerns, such as adding on to what we have, or even
22 deleting, suggested methodologies or alternatives in
23 this process, as well as sources for relevant data or
24 information.
25 Again, this is the Coast Guard and the
0039
1 EPA's Web site that you can get additional information
2 on.
3 At this point in this public scoping we
4 will go to part two, which is where we can gather in
5 groups. I think what we have as far as attendees, I
6 think we can probably do it in one group. What we're
7 going to do is, we have a facilitator who will take
8 you into the room next door. I don't know which
9 number it is, but if you go out this door and turn
10 right it's the first set of doors. There is another
11 room you can go into. The facilitator, the purpose
12 there is to get additional input not only on the
13 alternatives and the finer slicing of the alternatives
14 that Doctor Everett has provided or additional
15 alternatives that we haven't looked at or haven't
16 expressed here yet, also the environmental issues, and
17 also what we've shown here on the slide, deletions,
18 additions, what have you. We have an hour and 45
19 minutes set aside for this breakout session, and as
20 you can tell, we've been on the road, and I can tell
21 you right now nobody has used the full hour and 45
22 minutes. That's there for your use. We don't want to
23 cut off anybody if you have a really good discussion
24 going on, an exchange of ideas. I think an hour and
25 45 minutes is pretty sufficient.
0040
1 Once you come back from that breakout
2 session -- hopefully while you're over there you'll
3 select one of your group members to be the group
4 leader, who will actually do a report out. We've got
5 this microphone here in this room to report out. The
6 court reporter will capture the output as far as the
7 alternatives, additional alternatives or modifications
8 to the current alternatives we have up there, as well
9 as the environmental issues. After that there is a
10 time set aside for three-minute comments from the
11 public as to additional concerns or issues you might
12 have. We've provided a form here for you to do so in
13 three-minute increments. If you go to three minutes
14 and you have that more than that, if somebody else
15 wants to speak, set yourself aside. After that
16 gentleman speaks or lady speaks you can get back up
17 and finish up your thoughts.
18 At this time I would say -- it's 1:00. I
19 would say at ten after one we should come back in here
20 and then we'll have the breakout. Thank you very
21 much.
22 (Recess.)
23 MR. MCKITRICK: This is the part of the
24 public scoping meeting where we will take a -- I guess
25 in this venue we've only had one breakout group so
0041
1 we'll have the individual who was elected to come up
2 as soon as Ms. Nagle comes up, and did you want to say
3 anything at all at this point?
4 MS. NAGLE: No. Thank you.
5 MS. HURLD: I just wanted to state
6 briefly, we did have a volunteer who is going to come
7 up and summarize everything that was done, and just so
8 that everybody understands, he wanted it to be clear
9 that these weren't necessarily his concepts, all of
10 them, and if he does not capture your point, if we
11 could wait and after we do alternatives he'll then
12 ask if there were some concepts that were not clearly
13 articulated, and then he'll run through affected
14 environment and then the other issues, and feel free
15 after -- at each of those convenient points to
16 comment on each of those.
17 Do you want to come forward and speak
18 into the microphone?
19 MR. DAVIS: Thanks, Kathy.
20 My name is Parker Davis. I'm with
21 Aquahabistat, treatment technology, but I would like
22 to again reiterate that these are not necessarily the
23 views of my company.
24 Our group had a productive session
25 discussing the alternatives for the environmental
0042
1 impact standards. Our group came to the consensus
2 with respect to the alternatives that the second
3 alternative is the most appropriate and is the
4 broadest and most likely outcome, although it needs
5 clearly some specification within it. The standard --
6 the comment was made that the standard should look
7 at other water quality impacts. The term "negative
8 covenant" was used such that the standard makes points
9 of what is allowed in the ballast water but doesn't
10 necessarily address what is not allowed, for instance
11 changes in water characteristics, temperature, pH,
12 chemical byproducts and so forth.
13 The -- there was some discussion on
14 ballast water exchange and whether or not ballast
15 water exchange, if it in fact met the standard, should
16 have some review of its own environmental impact. I
17 will read down the list of comments. We have a number
18 of comments here. Is there a volumetric floor for the
19 treatment standards and regulations? In other words,
20 for smaller vessels that have very small ballast
21 tanks, should they be exempt from the standards or
22 should the standards simply not apply to them?
23 The frequency of visits should be
24 considered from ports, whether it be international
25 visits or domestic. This is similar to the prior
0043
1 point of discussing which vessels should necessarily
2 fall under the standards, and the frequency of voyage
3 should be considered. In a similar fashion the
4 regional variability of the voyages and the
5 variability of the habitats themselves and the
6 estuaries and the water quality of the port itself
7 should be -- should be considered.
8 There was a fair amount of discussion
9 on the idea of exempting species on a specific
10 port-by-port basis, in other words should the
11 standard be universal between ports or should it have
12 carve-outs for certain species based on the habitats
13 that are applicable to each port.
14 In a similar fashion, perhaps the
15 subpoint to that idea, is the concept of bacteria and
16 whether or not bacteria is a universal phenomenon or
17 whether or not ballast water is a primary vector of
18 the transport of bacteria, whether or not bacteria
19 should fall under the standards. There was a
20 contradictory point to that, that point
21 on bacteria, which was to suggest that regardless of
22 whether or not ballast water is the vector, that these
23 standards should apply to all organisms within the
24 determined concentration and size, again regardless of
25 the fact that ballast water is or is not the primary
0044
1 vector. I think the next point says effectively the
2 same thing, if I'm not mistaken. There was some
3 concept of ranking the threat of organisms within
4 their degree of invasiveness so to speak, which again
5 is a very similar point. There was also a related
6 idea that the size standard should include as many
7 organisms as possible, not necessarily specify what
8 organisms fall under -- identify specific organisms,
9 primarily in the smaller organism categories. For
10 instance, dinoflagellate was brought up as a concept
11 as opposed to specifying giardia.
12 There was also a concept raised of
13 phasing in the standard based on the specific threat,
14 whether or not that was volumetric, operational in
15 nature or originating port in nature so to speak
16 whereby a phase-in approach would identify the larger
17 threats involved and focus on those initially.
18 In similar fashion the group a comment
19 was made to suggest that the phased-in approach should
20 also focus on the cost benefit, which would include
21 the capabilities of the technology. While it is
22 recognized that technologies come under a different
23 regulatory umbrella, that the phase-in approach should
24 focus on the impact of the most environmentally
25 impactable organisms at the lowest cost to the ship
0045
1 owner and the ship operating community. The interim
2 standard if it is a phased-in approach should include
3 vessel owner involvement and encouragement by the
4 regulators for vessel owners to get involved.
5 The -- another comment was made on the
6 sufficiency of the standard. There was some debate as
7 to whether or not, as I mentioned, the standard should
8 apply to specific ports and specific organisms or
9 whether or not the standard should be the lowest
10 common denominator or the most deficient demoninator,
11 so to speak, to protect all ecosystems and one
12 standard would prevail. At any rate, the rationale
13 would need to be clear in the rule making process.
14 The standard should be reasonable for
15 maximum compliance, and also a similar idea to the
16 concept of encouraging vessel owners to participate,
17 that the standard itself should encourage the adoption
18 of treatment and ballast water management in general.
19 There was some discussion as to, again,
20 whether or not this standard should apply to U.S.
21 waters in general or should specify whether or not
22 intercoastal voyages or voyages within the United
23 States should apply, and there was a comment that
24 it should only address ballast water taken on outside
25 of the U.S., and I would skip that comment to
0046
1 suggest that there was also the comment that the
2 standard should, conversely, address all transfer of
3 ballast water, so two opposing comments.
4 I think this is somewhat of a repetitive
5 comment, and forgive me if I'm misrepresenting it,
6 but whether or not there should be a jurisdiction or
7 whether or not there is a jurisdiction over
8 indigenous species is also an issue. In other words,
9 perhaps there should be some selectivity over what
10 organisms are being introduced where and whether or
11 not the organisms that are being transferred are in
12 fact indigenous or not.
13 There was a comment in a more general
14 sense that the -- support on behalf of the Coast
15 Guard's efforts to develop standards that apply to all
16 vessels and all voyages and the concentration standard
17 not be specific to ports or organisms but rather be
18 specific to size and discharge.
19 There was some discussion as well with
20 respect to the determination of whether or not an
21 organism is in fact invasive perhaps is irrelevant
22 given that, by one example, the zebra mussel was not
23 necessarily deemed invasive so many years ago. How
24 much uncertainty in other words are we willing to
25 accept regarding potential invasions?
0047
1 MS. HURLD: You might want to ask for
2 clarification or if anybody wanted to clarify
3 anything.
4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I thought the
5 question on that -- that was your question. You
6 wouldn't have recognized it as being necessarily --
7 you might not have recognized it as being a terrible
8 species.
9 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In its native
10 habitat, right. How do we predict the invaders? How
11 much uncertainty are we willing to accept?
12 MR. STEWART: There was one other comment
13 that kind of accompanied that and that was --
14 MR. MCKITRICK: Can you come up and give
15 your name so it can be captured on the record?
16 MR. STEWART: I'm Jon Stewart. There was
17 just one other comment that kind of associated that
18 discussion, and that was, in developing -- if you're
19 using specific organisms as criteria, as benchmarks
20 and what have you, and the uncertainty of whether or
21 not they really impose an invasive species threat, as
22 you're developing a regulatory regime how do you
23 manage that in such a way -- how do you define that
24 and what characteristics or definition are required so
25 that you really have an enforceable end mechanism,
0048
1 that you don't just end up in a situation where
2 you're constantly facing litigation, challenges to
3 the enforcement aspect of it because there wasn't
4 enough substantiated evidence to support that indeed
5 that is an aquatic invasive species that is only being
6 introduced in that kind of circumstance and really was
7 a threat that could be associated with that particular
8 discharge and relative to its potential presence as an
9 already introduced or even potentially an indigenous
10 species.
11 MR. DAVIS: We had some discussion on
12 the affected environment and the list of affected
13 areas, topics, what have you for comment, and there
14 were certain comments on -- including the crew and the
15 vessel in this concept of environmental impact and not
16 perhaps just the discharge, again a comment on the
17 water quality upon discharge outside of the allowed
18 concentration, if you will.
19 There were also some comments on human
20 health impacts from the organisms themselves that
21 were allowed as discharge, in other words the --
22 there should be some review of the impact of certain
23 organisms on human health itself regardless of whether
24 or not -- talking about crew members and so forth on
25 board the vessel.
0049
1 There is some -- there is a delineation
2 in this list of affected environments on the Great
3 Lakes and the Hudson River. There was a comment
4 that we should be evaluating all sensitive ecosystems,
5 including the Chesapeake Bay, which is near and dear.
6 There was a comment to remove the concept
7 of cultural, historical or archaeological sites from
8 the list and that the air quality topic should address
9 fuel efficiency along with its other general
10 subcategories.
11 Help me out, Kathy. This last one says
12 identify areas of sensitivity and risk that may
13 require designation as --
14 MS. HURLD: No discharge zones.
15 MR. DAVIS: -- no discharge zones.
16 MS. HURLD: Do people have comments on
17 this?
18 MR. BROWNING: Wilson Browning. I think
19 with regard to the last item there about sensitive
20 places to discharge, there might also be a mechanism
21 for sensitive places to load ballast insofar as
22 certain ports might be known to have dangerous or
23 higher probability of having a human health, for
24 example, problem within their port. That could be
25 identified and handled separately outside of the
0050
1 general rule.
2 MR. DAVIS: We talked about the topic of
3 water quality issues associated with the standard.
4 That's confusing.
5 MS. HURLD: I'm sorry. What is
6 confusing?
7 MR. DAVIS: There was some discussion
8 also on the concept of the states' continued ability
9 to set standards versus the federal preemption of
10 those and that there is a potential for the states
11 to adopt standards that are otherwise unachievable
12 amidst federal standards that are achievable, and I
13 think to further that point, as mentioned earlier,
14 that this perhaps does create a litigious environment
15 with different regulations in different areas.
16 There was a comment made on the
17 definition of again the introduction of a species
18 or the spread of the species and whether or not we
19 should be clarifying that the species that is --
20 that falls under the standard is in fact a nuisance
21 species, again whether it's introduced or is in the
22 process of being spread further.
23 Again, falling under the category of
24 whether or not we are looking at this in an
25 economical fashion, we should identify and list
0051
1 ports internationally that perhaps may contain
2 ballast water or be a source of ballast water
3 that poses the greatest threat to our ecosystem or
4 habitats in and around the United States.
5 The approval process for the technology
6 itself, again understanding that this is under a
7 different regulatory process, will take into account
8 not only the water quality but also the changes to
9 the organisms themselves, such as mutation.
10 There were some comments on the rule
11 making process itself, whether that applies to the
12 standards, rule making that we're all discussing in
13 this forum or, more broadly, the mandatory program
14 introduced as a rule making in July and the penalties
15 introduced in January, that it will be helpful to see
16 as vendors or as potential customers or compliance
17 entities, shipping companies and so forth, as to
18 what is happening and how this is all fitting
19 together, that the Web site does have some
20 information on it but it is at this point dated and
21 that having access for all involved to some of the
22 presentations made in recent gatherings such as this
23 one and an update of the Coast Guard's efforts would
24 be extremely helpful to all stakeholders involved, and
25 lastly that a sense of clarity on timing will be
0052
1 greatly beneficial to all involved, not to suggest
2 that speed is of the essence, while many might argue
3 that, but clarity itself in terms of allowing the
4 vendors to communicate the timing and enforcement of
5 the regulations to their potential customers is
6 affecting their own viability in the sense that many
7 companies are looking towards investors and looking
8 towards ship owners as potential partners, but there
9 is not enough clarity on behalf of the Coast Guard, or
10 I should broaden that to the regulatory agencies as to
11 when compliance will take effect, and that should --
12 on the topic of timing itself, that the longer we wait
13 for the standards, fewer choices, ironically, we may
14 have based on those that are focused on this topic now
15 versus those who may lose interest or not have the
16 ability to remain intact.
17 MS. NAGLE: Thank you. Now we're going
18 to move into the three-minute comment period of this
19 meeting, and how we're going to do that is, if you
20 wish to speak we're going to ask you to come up here
21 to this microphone because the recorder says she can
22 pick up the voices a lot better than at the back one.
23 Before you speak, please state your name, and I've
24 also been asked to say that, you know, don't take any
25 interpretation about how we in the Coast Guard or EPA
0053
1 respond to your comment or don't respond to your
2 comment. We merely -- our whole intent is to make
3 sure that everybody has an opportunity to comment is
4 given that opportunity, and if you have more than
5 three minutes of talking, we'll -- you'll be asked to
6 hold your thought and take a seat, and after everybody
7 has an opportunity to speak you will be asked to come
8 back and complete your thought.
9 Now, to help people out, because I know
10 it's difficult when you're up here speaking to know
11 what the time is, as opposed to like putting the hook
12 on you when time is up, what I'll do is when you have
13 30 seconds left I'll stand back here and I'll just
14 raise one hand so you know you have 30 seconds, and
15 then I'll just go like this when the time is up,
16 okay.
17 MS. HURLD: Fred Dobbs had actually
18 checked off that he wanted to speak so I suppose he
19 would be the first speaker.
20 MR. DOBBS: I'll tell you I'm Fred Dobbs,
21 but that's my second line here. Good afternoon,
22 ladies and gentlemen. My name is Fred Dobbs. I'm an
23 associate professor in the Department of Ocean, Earth
24 and Atmospheric Sciences at Old Dominion University.
25 My comments today are presented in collaboration with
0054
1 Doctor Lisa Drake and Doctor Martina Doblin, assistant
2 research professors within the same department.
3 Since 1996 we've studied the microbiology
4 of ships' ballast water, ballast residuals and
5 biofilms within ballast tanks. Our research teams
6 have boarded and sampled more than 150 ships in the
7 Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes. We have been funded
8 in these efforts by the Maryland Sea Grant College
9 Program, the National Sea Grant College Program, the
10 U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. EPA, NOAA and the Great
11 Lakes Protection Fund. In addition to presentations
12 at international scientific meetings, we have
13 published our findings in the peer-reviewed scientific
14 literature and summarized them in publications more
15 easily read by the general public.
16 While there is much to say about
17 microbiology's input in formulating ballast water
18 discharge standards, we have time enough here only to
19 summarize several issues, the presence of human
20 pathogens in ballast tanks, the potential spread of
21 antibiotic resistance via transport of bacteria in
22 tanks and the size of toxic dinoflagellate cysts.
23 First, in analyzing samples from ballast
24 tanks, we have detected enteric bacteria, E. coli and
25 enterococci, the cholera bacterium Vibrio cholerae,
0055
1 protozoan parasites Cryptosporidium and Giardia and
2 the toxic dinoflagellate Pfiesteria. At present,
3 however, there is no predicting the presence of these
4 pathogens with respect to ballast exchange practices,
5 time of year the samples were collected or previous
6 ports of call. In formulating ballast water discharge
7 standards therefore it would be prudent to regard all
8 ships as potential carriers of pathogens.
9 Second, our analyses of Vibrio cholerae
10 have revealed some degree of antibiotic resistance in
11 76 percent of isolates from ballast tanks sampled in
12 the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. Antibiotic
13 resistance in bacteria is, of course, an undesirable
14 trait, having significant public health
15 ramifications. We are testing the hypothesis that
16 antibiotic resistance is imported into Chesapeake Bay
17 via ballast water operations. Potentially
18 exacerbating the situation is a well-known process
19 whereby bacteria transfer genes to one another,
20 bacterial sex, if you will. If genes encoding for
21 antibiotic resistance are transferred in ballast
22 tanks, then it would amplify risks associated with
23 ship-mediated transport of bacteria and their
24 subsequent release into receiving ports.
25 Third, toxic dinoflagellates affect human
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1 health and fisheries resources on a global scale.
2 Resting cysts of dinoflagellates readily accumulate in
3 ballast tanks, where they may remain viable for months
4 or years. Diverse and abundant populations of cysts
5 have been found in ballast tank sediments worldwide.
6 These resting cysts are highly resistant to numerous
7 chemical and other treatments, represent a significant
8 risk of introduction and clearly should be considered
9 in discussion of ballast water discharge standards.
10 In particular, appreciating the size of resting cysts
11 is fundamental to setting a scientifically defensible
12 size exclusion standard. Cyst sizes of harmful forms
13 range from ten to 87 micrometers.
14 We will elaborate on these summaries in a
15 document to be submitted to the Coast Guard's Docket
16 Management Facility. Thank you very much for your
17 time.
18 MS. NAGLE: Is there anybody else who
19 would like to speak?
20 You can use either microphone, whichever
21 one you feel more comfortable with.
22 MR. BROWNING: My name is Wilson
23 Browning. I'm a chairman of Aquahabistat, which has
24 a technology for eliminating air breathing aerobic
25 critters in ballast water. I've owned a ship before
0057
1 in my life. I've spent most of my life loading coal
2 ships. A cape size bulk carrier comes in here with
3 about 60 percent of its dead weight in ballast, and it
4 must discharge its ballast simultaneously to loading
5 its cargo. There is no such thing as temporary
6 instability, and the effort to be academically precise
7 about some of the things that have been expressed just
8 prior -- and Fred and I have been working together for
9 a long time and have disagreed for a long time -- I
10 just don't believe it's going to be capable of being
11 addressed by a foreign flagship with a foreign crew
12 who has to meter something into the water or use
13 chemicals or something like that. I think that this
14 bill has to go -- or this regulation has to go to
15 something very practical or it's just going to be not
16 adhered to.
17 MS. NAGLE: Anybody else?
18 MR. STEWART: My name is Jon Stewart.
19 I have three separate comments that I would like to
20 make, the first being that during the course of
21 development both of the potential rule making and the
22 final policy for ballast water discharge standards, I
23 think that there are some very complex issues that
24 need to be considered. One, of course, is the
25 biology, one is economics, and the third is one that I
0058
1 know has plagued the Coast Guard in trying to develop
2 this standard, and that is the possibility to have
3 effective enforcement and the verification that would
4 be required in order for that to happen, and in
5 evaluating the maze of requirements and the maze of
6 criteria that has to factor into that, I think it's
7 essential that at least at the beginning of this
8 effort, as this rule making comes to pass, that it be
9 simple enough and broad enough in scope that it does
10 really allow compliance and it does have a realistic
11 probability of enforcement and, of course, adaptable
12 over time, become more stringent and more -- and
13 better defined as time goes on: The second being
14 that there are a number of issues that have been
15 considered during the course of rule making, both in
16 consideration of the standards and in some of the
17 other aspects of the rule making, and I think it's
18 extremely important, especially in the early days,
19 that this issue of aquatic invasive species remain
20 the focus and that issues relative to safety,
21 dependability of ballast water exchange methods, other
22 ballast water management methods or eventually ballast
23 water treatment methods are left up to the mechanisms
24 that are already in place in terms of class oversight,
25 in terms of safety issues within Coast Guard purview
0059
1 and that the absolute focus on this issue be
2 maintained with aquatic invasive species and that
3 threat so that it becomes a simple path to finding
4 solutions and practical methodologies, whether they be
5 for ballast water management of any type that may
6 evolve. Thank you.
7 MS. NAGLE: Anybody else?
8 MR. OWENS: I'm David Owens with Allied
9 Transportation Company. We're an operator of U.S.
10 flag coastalized and ocean tug and barge units. First
11 of all, I would like to say I appreciate the
12 opportunity to participate in this part of the rule
13 making, but as a vessel operator we've been concerned
14 about what seems to be the piecemeal issuing of the
15 proposed rules. It's been difficult to formulate
16 responses since what is issued on the subsequent rule
17 making seems to raise issues from the previous rule
18 making. It makes it difficult to fully respond to the
19 proposed rules. While each NPRN does address separate
20 parts of the same issue, they do build on each other.
21 It feels like an attempt to phase in raw rules in
22 small steps. We keep waiting for the next shoe to
23 drop on this issue. Thank you.
24 MS. NAGLE: Thank you.
25 Anybody else?
0060
1 Fred, did you have anything else that you
2 wanted to say or did you finish?
3 MR. DOBBS: I was finished.
4 MS. NAGLE: Anybody else?
5 Thank you.
6 Kathy.
7 MS. MOORE: I want to begin by thanking
8 and actually congratulating this group. The
9 discussion and the comments that were delivered
10 and expressed represent quite a bit more work
11 both in time and comments than any of the other
12 groups yet for the meetings we've held. I
13 appreciate your contributions. I appreciate the
14 intent, that you came here to work with us to develop
15 a draft EIS that's much closer to correct the first
16 time through. I personally appreciate that. All the
17 agencies appreciate that.
18 To further enlighten you, the period of
19 time that the meeting continues for this evening, the
20 five-to-seven time slot is really going to be a very
21 informal walk-in time period. If there is something
22 that occurs to you after you've departed and you want
23 to come back and either deliver a written or verbal
24 comment, you're free to do that. We'll be here from
25 5:00 until there is no more activity or 7:00,
0061
1 whichever comes first. Again, I really appreciate
2 your work today, that you worked diligently with each
3 other and with us, and I appreciate your contributions
4 and I look forward to further comment in the docket.
5 Thank you very much.
6 (The meeting was adjourned.)
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0062
1 COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA AT LARGE, to wit:
2 I, Tracy B. Marinelli, RPR, a Notary
3 Public for the Commonwealth of Virginia at Large, of
4 qualification in the Circuit Court of the City of
5 Chesapeake, Virginia, and whose commission expires
6 July 31, 2006, do hereby certify that the
7 above-captioned hearing was recorded in Stenotype by
8 me and reduced to typescript under my direction; and
9 that to the best of my ability the foregoing
10 constitutes a true and accurate transcript of such
11 hearing.
12 I further certify that I am not related
13 to nor otherwise associated with any counsel or party
14 to this proceeding, nor otherwise interested in the
15 event thereof.
16 Given under my hand this 13th day of
17 November, 2003 at Norfolk, Virginia.
18 _________________________________
19 Tracy B. Marinelli, Notary Public
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