Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 14, Number 3 • Summer 2006
Great Lakes Basin Update - Ontario Side
Shipping Act to reduce invasion of Canada’s waterways - Canada takes step in right direction, but exempts the Great Lakes from new protection
By Great Lakes United
On June 28th, 2006 Transport Canada announced new
regulations under the Canada Shipping Act to reduce the
introduction of aquatic invasive species and pathogens into
Canadian waters through ship ballast water discharges. The
regulations, which have been under development since 2000,
set new ballast water management requirements for all ships
entering waters under Canadian jurisdiction, and represent
Canada’s first step towards implementation of the International
Maritime Organization’s Convention
for the Control and Management of
Ships' BallastWater and Sediments.
Three major conservation organizations
support the step being taken to
curb the introduction of invasive
species into Canadian waterways.
However, they are highly critical of
exemptions for ships entering the
Great Lakes loaded with goods, as
well as with the lack of enforceable
deadlines for treatment standards
and the glacial pace at which Canada
is responding to the invasive species
crisis. It is estimated that invasive
species currently costs Canada
billions of dollars each year. The
economic cost associated with the
invasion of just one species, the zebra mussel, has been
estimated at over $1 billion for the Great Lakes region alone.
"Over the past fifty years, aquatic invasive species have been one
of the greatest threats to Canada’s aquatic ecosystems, and
ships’ ballast tanks have been the primary pathway,” says
Francine MacDonald Invasive Species Biologist from the Ontario
Federation of Anglers and Hunters. “Given the enormous scope
of this problem and the rapid rate at which Canada’s waters are
being invaded, Canada needs to pick up the pace to protect our
waterways."
The new regulations mandate that all transoceanic ships
entering Canadian waters must manage ballast water by
employing open-ocean exchange, treatment, discharge to a
reception facility, and/or retention on board the ship. However,
the open-ocean exchange requirement remains the only
available option for ships.
"Although these regulations are an important step towards
curbing aquatic invasive species, the federal government failed
to commit to an enforceable deadline for compliance with more
effective management requirements,” says Justin Duncan, staff
lawyer for Sierra Legal Defence Fund. “Without an aggressive
standard and timeline, the invasion of Canada's waterways
will continue."
Further, an exemption to these regulations outlines specific
requirements for ships entering the Great Lakes loaded with
goods (otherwise called “No Ballast on Board), that are
unenforceable and will not stop invasions. NOBOB ships are
ships heavy with cargo and subsequently carry little or no ballast
water for stabilization purposes,
but can carry unpumpable water
and sediment that can harbour
invasive species.
"Only mandatory regulations for
NOBOBs would have resulted in
improved protections for this
closed freshwater ecosystem,” says
Jennifer Nalbone, Campaign
Director from Great Lakes United.
“Instead, with this exemption, the
Canadian government has failed to
improve protections for the Great
Lakes."
According to recent academic
research, a new invasive species is
detected in the Great Lakes every
28 weeks. Since 1959, 73% of new
invasions in the Great Lakes have been attributed to transoceanic
shipping. More than 90% of transoceanic ships entering the
Great Lakes are NOBOB, due to their predominance scientists
recognize that these ships pose the greatest threat for new invasions.
The Regulations can be found at:
http://canadagazette.gc.ca/partII/2006/20060628/
html/sor129-e.html
Additional references:
Holeck, K., et al "Bridging Troubled Waters: Biological Invasions,
Transoceanic Shipping, and the Laurentian Great Lakes"
Bioscience 54:10, 2004
Ricciardi, A."Patterns of Invasion in the Laurentian
Great Lakes in Relation to Changes in Vector Activity"
Diversity & Distributions – in press
For further information please contact:
Jennifer Nalbone, Great Lakes United (716) 213-0408, jen@glu.org
Francine MacDonald, OFAH (705) 748-6324, francinem@ofah.org
Justin Duncan, Sierra Legal (416) 368-7533 Ext. 22,
jduncan@sierralegal.org
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