--- Essentially, ballast water is water stored in a ship without cargo in it. It adds weight that can be discharged easily, and is essential to the stability and operation of the ship. Ballast water unfortunately brings in organisms in one part of the world to be dropped off somewhere else. This carries invasive species and can disrupt the ecosystem. These can include anything from plants to bacteria.
The solution seems to be to exchanging the ballast water at high depth, during the day, as far away from the littoral (area close to shore) as possible: http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Ballast_water.
This video explains how ballast water will be treated per the real life Ballast Water Management Convention. We may have to watch it a few times. This seems to be a modern solution that is not fully implemented yet.
A previous resolution regarding ballast water banned the discharge of ballast water on coastal waters, which put human lives in danger. We should prioritize human life.
It seems are option are to:
- Force ballast water to be discharged only at specific points as mentioned earlier
- Require ballast water to be treated as described in the video and give ships time to implement this.
--- Upon researching this, it appears that there is no general invasive species prevention legislation, so we can try that too if we like. I'd like to start small, but would like Morover to confirm that ballast water is enough to legislate on.
Please post here with any comments regarding the draft or the communal project (include suggestions on what can be included in the resolution). You can also talk in #wa-staff.