§ 7. Immediate priorities

§ 7.1. Getting down to the bottom line. Finally, at the end of the day of the workshop, as we ran out of time to deal with issues which could have well been the subject of a week-long workshop, I asked the participants to focus in on three questions before they ran for their airplanes: (1) What are the very most important priorities generally? (2) What are the specific goals that we should set for action in a 5-10 year plan for dealing with ballast water? (3) What are the specific goals that we should set for action in a 5-10 year plan for dealing with commercial uses? Again, these were not points of consensus, but rather points made by individual participants (although some of the points below combine related comments from more than one participant).

§ 7.2. General points on priorities (applicable to both shipping and commercial uses):

1. Need management plans, with monitoring and public reporting.
2. Need to monitor invasions and communicate the findings to the public on the internet.
3. Need to develop some short-term solutions while continuing to work on long-term goals.

§ 7.3. Priorities for dealing with ballast water:

1. Begin with Clean Water Act permitting standards for ballast water, which will start low but work up. (Several participants, particularly representatives of state and tribal agencies, supported the use of the CWA for dealing with ballast, despite the strong opposition from industry. Another contrary comment, not from industry, was that the CWA process might apply to new construction - presumably by application of the requirement for installation of the "best practical technology" but would not be so applicable to existing vessels.)
2. Focus on the "best practical technology" for ballast (as in other areas of pollution under the CWA) and ask researchers for their opinions on immediate best options for IJC recommendations to the governments.
3. Need immediate audit of the implementation of the current exchange regime. (Was also argued that the current regime is well monitored, but the problem is that we already know that it is ineffective.)
4. Need short-term plan for dealing with the NOBOBs (vessels reporting "no ballast on board," but carrying residual ballast, not currently regulated).
5. Need requirement that any ship built after 2004 or 2005 incorporates some experimental design for dealing with ballast water.

§ 7.4. Priorities for dealing with commercial uses:

1. Need to change the culture, through education, and work with industry within the framework of the HACCP system ("hazard analysis of critical control points").
2. Need to redefine some US state agency roles, and need to bring some of the smaller agencies (agencies more directly concerned with some aspects of aquaculture?) into the regulatory process.
3. Need a common Great Lakes "green list" (list of approved species, on which species must be listed before they are allowed for use) and a process for consultation among the agencies in the Great Lakes.