Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle is proposing stringent new regulations for ships using the Great Lakes, requiring them to meet much higher standards on purging their ballast tanks to prevent the importation of invasive species that have caused enormous problems throughout the region.
 

Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed permit program would require all ocean-going vessels that discharge ballast water at Wisconsin ports to greatly step up their removal of invasive species within the next three years. Included in Doyle’s 2009-11 budget, the program would be operated by the Department of Natural Resources…

Under Doyle’s proposal, Wisconsin would require all ocean-going vessels by 2012 to cleanse their ballast water 100 times more stringently than a proposed international standard. By 2013, all newly constructed ships that dock at Wisconsin ports would need to cleanse their ballast water 1,000 times more stringently than the international standard. This regulation also will go into effect in 2013 in New York and Pennsylvania. None of Wisconsin’s proposed new standards would be required of “lakers,” the ships that only travel the waters of the Great Lakes.

The problem of invasive species brought in via ship’s ballast is costing the Great Lake states billions of dollars a years, killing native species and disrupting the food chain. These new restrictions would be more stringent than federal regulations, but Michigan may benefit as well because ships that dock in both states would have to comply with the most cumbersome regulations.