ESA blawg

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As the US economy recovers with renewed global trade allowing for an ever increasing flow of consumer goods being shipped into the US it should be noted in history, that despite historic legislation by the house of representatives in 2008 to curtail the destruction of our waters from ballast discharges, now in 2010 we still do not have any legislation insuring anything close to adequate. As history should record that during this period of troubled economic times individual states realizing the lack of Federal action have spent enormous amounts of money to try and protect our waters? It should also be noted that this administration despite knowing of the terrorist threat, and ecological, and human health problems has as yet failed to address the problem of ballast water and appears to be leaving it up to the military plan of two decades, which follows the IMO, an organization of foreign countries, foreign companies, and foreign sea captains knowing that their organization has a terrible track record. It should also be noted that the Secretary of State is calling for a quick ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. By ratifying the law of the Sea Treaty without first establishing a national ballast water policy, the problem is the provisions in the treaty mirror the IMO on ballast water. Ratification of this treaty first will make it much harder to later implement national ballast water policy. With a myriad of state laws that will be impossible to enforce, without an infrastructure and the Coast Guard working on their two decade plan industry knows it has won. This is evident by a recent article in The Maritime Executive magazine where Joseph Keefe states that the regulations drawn up by individual states are only a "pipe dream". { Link }
I have tried in my state to address water transported across state lines to our watersheds in fish movement during the creation of state regulation on bait fish. The regulations were drawn up during the last governor’s administration., a state official stated to me that they new what they were doing. If legislation such as hr.3669 curtailing imports of exotic and ornamental fish is enacted it is probable that domestic production and interstate transportation of fish will increase. As transportation of fish most often use natural waters capable of invasive s, virus, pathogens and added chemicals in transport, and the federal government dose not endorse interstate transportation of fish it is a states rights issue, and in states like NY this water often ends up dumped into natural waters. It should be noted that Governor Patterson was instrumental in establishing some of the toughest ballast water regulations in the country. Perhaps when he started this legislation in 2008 he realized that strong ballast water legislation by this administration would be up in the air and doubted if America would have any real change. Previously only legislation that was a hoax of protection had been considered by Senators from my state in regards to ballast water, that contained language such as in so far as is practicable. Obviously the President should acknowledge the governors of all states that have been prudent to protect our waters as they may be facing fiscal crisis, and have had to spend huge amounts of money in these though economic times to insure our protection since the Federal government has failed. As our current Secretary of State, that now negotiates trade with China, involving water movement through ballast systems, did not recognize virus and pathogens in natural waters for fish transport when they were involved as a senator in NY, despite knowing that our state university, helping formulate policy about bait fish was busy studying virus in water. I doubt whether this administration will care about the dangers of ballast water or the carbon footprints associated with bring foreign products into our country in order to keep our large retail employers shelves filled with foreign manufactured products while Americans are out of work.