A lowly mollusk could mussel out New York City’s $37 billion shipping industry.
Tough state rules on the ballast water in ships entering New York waters — meant to halt invasive stowaway species like zebra mussels — could keep thousands of commercial vessels from docking here, killing up to 450,000 jobs and $5 billion in annual tax revenue, say industry leaders and elected officials.
“Policies like this give New York the worst business climate in the country,” said Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn). “Costs would be driven up on everything we purchase. No cruise ships could enter or leave New York. All residents would be impacted.”
Cruise lines, container ships and tankers take on and pump out water to keep them stable as they load and unload. In the past, such water taken aboard at a foreign port would stay in the ballast tanks until they were drained at the next port.
But unwanted fish, mollusks and microbes can live in that water and potentially devastate native ecosystems.
The zebra mussel, a small shellfish originally from Russia with no natural predators here, has already grown out of control in parts of the Great Lakes and is impacting the Hudson River.
To protect local waters from such hitchhiking critters, ships currently swap their freshwater ballast for saltwater far out at sea.
And the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed stricter standards requiring vessels to install systems to cleanse ballast water more thoroughly.
But that’s not enough for New York’s own Department of Environmental Conservation.
Starting in 2013, the agency wants to make ships scrub their ballast water 10 to 100 times cleaner than EPA standards will require — even though “it technologically can’t happen,” said Edward J. Kelly of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Kelly says that no existing or in-development system can produce ballast water as clean as DEC insists on. No industry or government regulator has even come up with a way to test shipboard ballast water as precisely as New York wants to require.
“It’s totally unrealistic,” Kelly said. “We as an industry are just astounded that this one agency is allowed to run haywire with requirements that would kill businesses and jobs.”
Cruise ships will be hit hard by the rules as well, meaning that the more than 500,000 people who take them from New York annually will likely pay jacked-up ticket prices.
Environmentalists cheer New York’s rules, arguing that federal standards are too weak.
“These invasive species decimate the deep-water sport fishing industry and damage pipes and infrastructure,” said Paul Gallay of Riverkeeper. “You’ve got to go all in to stop them.”
But due to the looming new rules, “companies are not investing right now in New York shipping,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn).
New York’s port already faces competitive pressures from Baltimore and other East Coast harbors for business. Critics say having the strictest — and therefore most expensive — regulations of any landing means companies will take their boats elsewhere.
Already, Wisconsin, which introduced rules similar to New York’s, has backed off to adopt the international standards. California is now modifying its own strict ballast rules after regulators learned that ships could not comply with them.
A DEC spokeswoman said that the agency is “carefully reviewing EPA’s proposal and will provide comments at the appropriate time.”
Ship shape
In 2010, the Port of New York/Jersey hosted:
Cargo ships: 4,811
Cargo value: $175.8 billion
Tons of cargo: 81,392 total metric tons
Top imports: mineral fuel and oil, furniture, apparel, beverages
Top exports: wood pulp, paper, mineral fuel and oil, plastics, vehicles
Tax revenue generated: $5.2 billion total, including $1.6 billion state and local
Number of times cruise ships docked here: 241
Cruise passengers: 582,979
Source: Port Authority