Ballast Water 2014

Ballast water brings marine species into areas where they don´t belong. The ecological and the economic damage caused by invasive marine species is huge.

This is why in February 2004 the IMO, International Maritime Organization, adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments - the Ballast Water Management or BWM Convention.

The convention has not yet come into force. A few states still need to ratify in order to achieve 35% of the world´s merchant shipping tonnage. A lot of experts think that the time is close. Without doubt the convention will become reality.

The Convention will require all ships to implement a Ballast Water and Sediments Management Plan and poses a lot of challenges to port authorities, Ballast Water Treatment suppliers and of course to ship owners.

One challenge is how to check whether the BWT on a vessel is operating successfully. Workable instruments are necessary. The requirements are: mobile use onboard, easy to operate, short measuring time, reliable results.

Topics of the workshop included:

• General introduction in indicative tests for ballast water
• Detailed description of existing and promising tools from various vendors
• Demonstrations of relevant instruments and approaches
• 1 cell/ml detection: the bbe device 10cells will be shown
• Sampling of ballast water

Guests came from Austria, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerlandand, USA and of course all over Germany.