Tank Access for Ballast Water Sampling
Abstract
New United States Coast Guard regulations will mandate ballast water exchange for ships entering U.S. waters from beyond the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone boundary. In order for the Coast Guard to verify compliance boarding teams must physically collect ballast water samples from tanks or discharges to analyze them with portable onsite equipment. In order to maximize the number of ships checked and minimize interference with ships' operations, the sample collecting and testing must be as simple as possible. To this end. easy access to ballast tanks is of paramount importance. This report presents an overview of typical ballast tank arrangements and identifies five different ballast tank accesses generally found on ships that make U.S. port calls. The practicality of using each of these five accesses is discussed, with particular regard to the use of state-of-the-art ballast water sampling equipment. This report recommends modifications to certain existing ballast tank accesses in order to provide easy and convenient access for obtaining samples.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA428373
Entities
People
- John Hunter
- Timothy Doughty