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 large fish to bacteria.
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Essentially, the proposal requires ships whose mother nation is in the World Assembly equip themselves with some way to sterilize the water, thereby killing all the creatures within the ballast water so they are not disrupting other environments as invasive species.
Ships need to have time before they install these systems, so in the mean time, they should exchange their ballast water at water at least 2000m deep. This is because deep water has major salinity differences from the shores where the ballast water originates and is later dumped in. Major salinity differences kill fish.
The World Assembly,
Recognizing that non-indigenous species can disrupt and inflict significant harm unto environments which the species is not indigenous , including causing extinctions, taking control of limited resources, decreasing biodiversity, and altering habitats,
Noting that non-indigenous species can cause economic damage to industries whose products are created using natural, nonrenewable products, such as the fishing industry,
Aware that ballast water spreads various aquatic or other species to habitats or environments in which they are not indigenous, increasing the frequency of the aforementioned issues,
Hereby,
- Defines “ballast water” as water taken from a location in a body of water into a vessel of a ship to be dispensed into a location in a body of water of significant distance from the initial location;
- Requires ships to sterilize ballast water before the ballast water is dispensed to kill organisms that may be present;
- Disallows any treatment process which can be reasonably deemed a threat to one or more person’s safety;
- Affords ships 6 months after the passage of this resolution or the nation of registration’s initial entry into the World Assembly to install a treatment system;
- Encourages ships to install systems that will automatically sterilize ballast water as opposed to manual sterilization;
- Mandates that ships which have not yet installed a method to treat ballast water exchange their ballast water during a voyage in water at least 2000 meters deep, unless one or both of the following situations applies:
- such an exchange could be reasonably deemed a threat to any person(s) safety;
- such an exchange is impossible due to lack of fitting location;
- Encourages ships to exchange ballast water in bodies of water with reasonably significant differences in salinity from the body of water where the ballast water originated, even in situations where the ship qualifies under one of the aforementioned exceptions to the exchange of ballast water.
