Interferry Welcomes IMO Move to Consider Exemption from Ballast Water Rules

Interferry's Johan Roos says there are mounting concerns by short sea operators

Interferry today in an emailed press release has praised a decision at last week's meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) that could exempt certain ferry operators from fitting equipment required by the impending Ballast Water Management Convention to reduce the spread of invasive species.

"This is a very welcome step in the light of mounting concerns by short sea operators in general and ferry operators in particular," commented Johan Roos, Interferry's director of regulatory affairs.

"We recognise the need to act on the movement of invasive species between geographical areas where natural spread does not occur, but in our view there is no added value to the environment by destroying organisms that may spread naturally."

In a joint submission with Denmark, the trade association argued that ballast water management systems were irrelevant for ships continuously operating in the same body of water, a point raised by Roos earlier this month at the 39th Annual Interferry conference in Vancouver, Canada.

The MEPC now says a sub-committees should further consider the issue, including how appropriate operators could obtain an exemption certificate.

The case for exemptions has mainly been voiced by North Sea and Baltic countries, but last week the governments of Croatia and Singapore also raised their concerns with the MEPC. 

Mr Roos said this demonstrated that short sea operators around the world needed to see a workable exemption solution to avoid having to fit 'meaningless and energy-consuming equipment' on all ships.