Over 30% of all installed ballast water treatment systems fail Port State Control D-2 compliance inspections despite 95% of systems having successfully passed commissioning tests.
Information submitted by Global TestNet to the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee revealed that 29% to 44% of operational systems are failing to remove invasive species.
According to the findings, the most common reasons for non-compliance were contamination of the ballast water tank from mixing treated and untreated waters or improperly opening/closing valves; organism regrowth due to insufficient and infrequent cleaning of the ballast water tanks; and human error due to insufficient system knowledge, maintenance, and training.
