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Guidelines for ballast water
Volume 28/Number 8/August 1994
Green Tankers For Norway Norway is exploring the idea of a 'risk zone' to be applied to ships determined by environmental indexing. According to a recent report in Lloyds List, the system would be used to determine the route a ship could take based on the risk it poses to the environment. A ship's risk zone would be determined by environmental indexing, by which ships have had a pollution-potential audit and accumulated a points total (e.g. age, flag and anti-pollution features). Thus a ship surrounded by a wide risk zone could be prevented from using the Dover Strait and be re-routed around the British Isles to reach, for example, Rotterdam from the Middle East. Environmental indexing is part of a general move by the Norwegian maritime sector on future safety and environmental policies. More specific measures on pollution reduction are being developed through a $23 million 'Green Ships' programme which has brought together the shipping industry, insurers, classification societies, oil companies, research institutions and the Norwegian government. Other research has centred around exhaust gas emissions from ships' diesel engines. There is little industry in Norway and ships have been found to be the biggest polluters. Exhaust gas recirculation is being looked at as are alternative fuels such as LPG. Fugitive emissions have also been found to be a significant source of pollution. It is estimated that gas carriers can, through vaporization, lose 80-100 t of cargo whilst oil tankers can lose as much as 200 t. Trials are due to take place this autumn with a North Sea shuttle tanker fitted with plant to recover cargo vapour which should recover 90-95% of the loss through a process of refrigeration and distillation.
Guidelines for Ballast Water Ports could help to control the problem of ballast water contamination at source according to the director of the Australian Chamber of Shipping, Gregory Bondar. Speaking at the Canberra Ballast Water Symposium in May, he proposed that ports should provide information to enable ships to take on uncontaminated ballast in their waters. Ballast contamination is an increasing problem in Australian waters and is believed to be the source of alien organisms causing toxic blooms. Australian ports such as the Port of Melbourne already implement a system of warning, recommending ballasting in areas away from those known to harbour undesirable organisms. Shipping agents within the port were invited to communicate information to ship's masters, and a mechanism was established to transmit details of the contaminated areas to owners of ships expected in port. Mr Bondar emphasized that it was important that the international guidelines for ballast water management now being developed remained on a voluntary basis because remedies available at this time are not necessarily the most effective. Chemical treatment of ballast water may cause as much environmental damage
as the organisms themselves, whils.t heating ballast water would be prohibitively expensive, impractical and time-consuming. Australian ports receive an estimated 121 million t of ballast water each year, of which 95% is discharged from bulk carriers. There are at least 40 Australian ports which receive bulk carriers in ballast, with the greatest problems occurring in Hoy Point, Newcastle, Port Hedland, Dampier and Gladstone. Co-operation between the Australian Quarantine and Immigration Service and the international shipping industry had been high, with 80% of ship's now entering Australian waters reporting compliance with the guidelines.
Mystery Slick at Cape Peninsula The source of the oil slick that hit the west coast of South Africa in June remains a mystery. The slick has caused untold damage to the Dash Islands where the entire colony of 30 000 breeding jackass penguins were badly hit. The island, about 40 km north of Cape Town, was affected by a slick of oil about 800 m b y 200 m coming from an unknown source, although oil was seen bubbling up in an area where the tanker Castillo de Bellverwent down in 1983 with up to 40 000 t of crude oil aboard. Analysis of the beached oil with that from the sunken tanker has not given a conclusive match and it is possible that the oil has come from the bulk carrier Appollo Sea, which left Saldenah Bay on South Africa's west coast a few days earlier and which has not been heard of since. Severe weather conditions hampered containment and clean-up operations and drove the oil further south where it began to impact shores in the immediate vicinity of Cape Town. Penguins were airlifted from affected beaches to treatment centres. The high winds of up to 75 knots continually swept polluted water over the colonies of birds exacerbating the situation. Bird experts have said that about one-third of the colony would probably die as a result of the pollution. Meanwhile, the oil beached at Cape Town was severely impacting the environment and damaging the city's tourist industry. Cape Town's City Council estimated it would take 3 months to clean the city's tourist beaches, but feared the coastline's ecosystem would take years to recover from the region's worst ever pollution disaster. Environmentalists warned 4 years ago that the stern of the sunken tanker was an 'ecological time bomb', but experts believed it was not possible to remove the remaining oil from her.
Exxon Faces Punitive Damages Over Valdez Spill Exxon is now facing punitive damages awards of up to $15 billion following a federal jury ruling in Anchorage, Alaska. Exxon, together with Captain 469
Green Tankers For Norway Norway is exploring the idea of a 'risk zone' to be applied to ships determined by environmental indexing. According to a recent report in Lloyds List, the system would be used to determine the route a ship could take based on the risk it poses to the environment. A ship's risk zone would be determined by environmental indexing, by which ships have had a pollution-potential audit and accumulated a points total (e.g. age, flag and anti-pollution features). Thus a ship surrounded by a wide risk zone could be prevented from using the Dover Strait and be re-routed around the British Isles to reach, for example, Rotterdam from the Middle East. Environmental indexing is part of a general move by the Norwegian maritime sector on future safety and environmental policies. More specific measures on pollution reduction are being developed through a $23 million 'Green Ships' programme which has brought together the shipping industry, insurers, classification societies, oil companies, research institutions and the Norwegian government. Other research has centred around exhaust gas emissions from ships' diesel engines. There is little industry in Norway and ships have been found to be the biggest polluters. Exhaust gas recirculation is being looked at as are alternative fuels such as LPG. Fugitive emissions have also been found to be a significant source of pollution. It is estimated that gas carriers can, through vaporization, lose 80-100 t of cargo whilst oil tankers can lose as much as 200 t. Trials are due to take place this autumn with a North Sea shuttle tanker fitted with plant to recover cargo vapour which should recover 90-95% of the loss through a process of refrigeration and distillation.
Guidelines for Ballast Water Ports could help to control the problem of ballast water contamination at source according to the director of the Australian Chamber of Shipping, Gregory Bondar. Speaking at the Canberra Ballast Water Symposium in May, he proposed that ports should provide information to enable ships to take on uncontaminated ballast in their waters. Ballast contamination is an increasing problem in Australian waters and is believed to be the source of alien organisms causing toxic blooms. Australian ports such as the Port of Melbourne already implement a system of warning, recommending ballasting in areas away from those known to harbour undesirable organisms. Shipping agents within the port were invited to communicate information to ship's masters, and a mechanism was established to transmit details of the contaminated areas to owners of ships expected in port. Mr Bondar emphasized that it was important that the international guidelines for ballast water management now being developed remained on a voluntary basis because remedies available at this time are not necessarily the most effective. Chemical treatment of ballast water may cause as much environmental damage
as the organisms themselves, whils.t heating ballast water would be prohibitively expensive, impractical and time-consuming. Australian ports receive an estimated 121 million t of ballast water each year, of which 95% is discharged from bulk carriers. There are at least 40 Australian ports which receive bulk carriers in ballast, with the greatest problems occurring in Hoy Point, Newcastle, Port Hedland, Dampier and Gladstone. Co-operation between the Australian Quarantine and Immigration Service and the international shipping industry had been high, with 80% of ship's now entering Australian waters reporting compliance with the guidelines.
Mystery Slick at Cape Peninsula The source of the oil slick that hit the west coast of South Africa in June remains a mystery. The slick has caused untold damage to the Dash Islands where the entire colony of 30 000 breeding jackass penguins were badly hit. The island, about 40 km north of Cape Town, was affected by a slick of oil about 800 m b y 200 m coming from an unknown source, although oil was seen bubbling up in an area where the tanker Castillo de Bellverwent down in 1983 with up to 40 000 t of crude oil aboard. Analysis of the beached oil with that from the sunken tanker has not given a conclusive match and it is possible that the oil has come from the bulk carrier Appollo Sea, which left Saldenah Bay on South Africa's west coast a few days earlier and which has not been heard of since. Severe weather conditions hampered containment and clean-up operations and drove the oil further south where it began to impact shores in the immediate vicinity of Cape Town. Penguins were airlifted from affected beaches to treatment centres. The high winds of up to 75 knots continually swept polluted water over the colonies of birds exacerbating the situation. Bird experts have said that about one-third of the colony would probably die as a result of the pollution. Meanwhile, the oil beached at Cape Town was severely impacting the environment and damaging the city's tourist industry. Cape Town's City Council estimated it would take 3 months to clean the city's tourist beaches, but feared the coastline's ecosystem would take years to recover from the region's worst ever pollution disaster. Environmentalists warned 4 years ago that the stern of the sunken tanker was an 'ecological time bomb', but experts believed it was not possible to remove the remaining oil from her.
Exxon Faces Punitive Damages Over Valdez Spill Exxon is now facing punitive damages awards of up to $15 billion following a federal jury ruling in Anchorage, Alaska. Exxon, together with Captain 469