Ballast water

Oil-water mixmres and emulsions, e.g., from separators, tank bottoms, ballast water, etc. Heating of such materials is often necessary to separate oil and water. 

The Oil Pollution Act of 1961 was primarily concerned witli tlie regulation of the deliberate discharge of oil or oil wastes into Uie water. As a result of Uiis act, Uie owners of transport sliips were to take precautions to minimize Ute effect of pollution. Oily ballast water separators were required on ships, and owners Imd to maintain oil record books. Violators of Uie Oil Pollution Act were subject to fines of not more than 1,000 for improper record keeping. 

But an ideological shift in Congress disrupted this process. In the 104th Congress, industrial opponents of appliance efficiency standards found sympathetic support, and passed a one-year moratorium on appliance efficiency standards in 1995. The moratorium held back DOE efforts on appliance standards for nearly two years. The refrigerator standard that was to be issued early in 1995 was delayed until 1997, and the effectiveness date set hack three years until 2001. Progress toward new standards on ballasts, water heaters, air conditioners, clothes washers, and other products was delayed. 

Bilges and ballast waters are one of the most difficult areas of this nature to deal with, especially in machinery spaces, since not only are they almost impossible to keep dry or even to dry out while the offshore installation is in operation, but effective maintenance of protective coatings at ail areas is in any case quite impossible except at major overhauls and refits, because of inaccessibility or very high temperatures and humidities. Good initial... 

The Great Lakes have suffered the invasion of numerous exotic species of which the smelt, alewife and sea lamprey are probably the best known. More recently, two more species have entered the lakes probably via ballast water from foreign ships. The ruffe (Gymnocephalus cemuus) a small percid, feeds on the eggs and larvae of other percids and whitefish. The ruffe is currently considered to be a threat to Lake Superior s 5- 10 million whitefish fishery. The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) was discovered in Lake St. Clair in 1985 (31). It has subsequently been discovered at locations throughout the Great Lakes and is of major concern not only environmentally but economically. It has already colonized numerous industrial and domestic water intakes in sufficient numbers to entirely block water flow and is also an intermediate host to parasites which eventually invade fish. 

Wastewaters may be collected in separate drainage systems (for process, sanitary, and storm water) althongh industrial and stormwater systems may in some cases be combined. In addition, ballast water from bulk crude tankers may be pnmped to receiving facilities at the refinery site prior to removal of floating oil in an interceptor and treatment as for other wastewater streams. 

Paterson, D., An international and Australian agenda for minimzing the spread of harmful algal blooms via ship ballast water, in Hallegraeff, G.M., IOC of UNESCO, Paris, 2001. 

Invasive species Ships and ballast water, fishery stocking, aquarists Dispiaces native species, introduces new diseases. 

In addition to these effluent standards, the EPA has also established separate BPT, BAT, BCT, and NSPS standards for ballast water and BPT, BAT, and BCT standards for contaminated storm water (40 CFR Part 419). Once-through cooling water is allowed for direct discharge if the total organic carbon concentration does not exceed 5 mg/L. 

The first step in good pretreatment practice is the segregation of major wastewater streams. This frequently simplifies waste treating problems as well as reducing treatment facility costs. Treatment at the source is also helpful in recovering byproducts that otherwise would not be economically recovered from combined wastes downstream [35]. Four major pretreatment processes that are applicable to individual process effluents or groups of effluents within a refinery are sour water stripping, spent caustics treatment, ballast water separation, and slop oil recovery. These are discussed below. 

Another quinone-related natural compound evaluated by Schrader etal is SeaKleen , a commercial biocide used to treat the ballast water of ships to help prevent the spread of pest organisms such as algae. SeaKleen consists of menadione sodium bisulfite, a water-soluble form of menadione... 

Toxins and environmentally noxious metabolites Most ichthyotoxins in the oceans are produced by a few species of dinoflagellates that bloom at certain periods, representing a deadly risk for humans. The blooming of toxic species, once limited to specific areas, has now extended to many coastal waters because of the spreading of the species through ballast water operations. 

Introduction of many successful alien species in tropical islands by the European colonizers caused the disappearance of many endemic species, especially, two hundred years ago, in the Hawaiian archipelago, which had already been threatened 1,200 years before by the intrusion of the Polynesians. With the opening of the Panamanian and Suez streets and ballast water operations, the introduction of species has occurred to such a large extent that it has often become difficult distinguishing what is adapted fi-om what is endemic. 

The documented list of alien species is enormous, growing at no pace. It is updated by an international organization of ecologists, Marine-Pests, directed by Australian scientists of the CSIRO (CSIRO). Counting alien species is probably already beyond our resources, however. GovemnKntal regulations appear slowly, such as a much controversial code of procedure for ballast waters recently issued by the US government. 

The movement of biological stressors have been described as diffusion and/or jump-dispersal processes. Diffusion involves a gradual spread from the site of introduction and is a function primarily of reproductive rates and motility. Jump-dispersal involves erratic spreads over periods of time, usually by means of a vector. The gypsy moth and zebra mussel have spread this way the gypsy moth via egg masses on vehicles and the zebra mussel via boat ballast water. Biological stressors can use both diffusion and jump-dispersal strategies, which makes it difficult to predict dispersal rates. An additional complication is that biological stressors are influenced by their own survival and reproduction. 

During the past 50 years, the extension of the species list is related to the progress in floristic knowledge rather than to the appearance of new species meanwhile, recently, some previously unknown species have been recognized. These are typical of the Mediterranean Sea and penetrated via the Bosporus Strait either in a natural way [15] or with the ballast waters of ships. It is suggested that the transport of new species with the ballast waters may exceed their natural supply via the Bosporus [16]. Certain... 

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