Latest threat to the Great Lakes: a bill in Congress

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Like an invasive species sneaking into Lake Michigan aboard an oceangoing ship, a provision that could do great damage to the Great Lakes has hitched itself to a defense bill working its way through Congress.

If the provision, already approved in the House, makes it through the Senate, it would punch a ticket for more invasive species to travel to the Great Lakes. To protect the lakes, the Senate should deep-six this dangerous idea.

More than 180 non-native species have overrun the Great Lakes ecosystem. Many of them, including round gobies and zebra and quagga mussels, stowed away in the ballast water of ships from distant ports. The ecological and economic damage has been huge.

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Environmental groups have been fighting for years to keep ships from dumping additional alien plants, fish, viruses and bacteria into the lakes when they empty water from their ballast tanks. Since 2013, ships have been required to dump their ballast before entering the Great Lakes, but some organisms survive that process. Last year, the environmentalists won an important victory when a federal court ruled the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rules had not been strict enough.

To get around that court decision, lawmakers slipped the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act into the National Defense Authorization Act, knowing it’s virtually impossible for Congress to vote against money for defense or for the White House to veto it. The provision would shift oversight of ballast water from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Coast Guard, effectively negating the court decision. It would prevent states from adopting new laws and also would get ship operators out from under the Clean Water Act.

The Clean Water Act would require shippers in the future to adopt technology that’s better at eliminating alien organisms when it becomes economically feasible to do so. That’s a reasonable standard. Great Lakes water will become an increasingly important resource, and no one knows when a new invasive species has arrived until the damage has been done.

Supporters of the provision in Congress, including cruise lines and cargo shipping interests serving the East, West and Gulf coasts, say they simply want a single set of regulations, not a patchwork of state and federal laws. But that doesn’t explain why the regulations need to be weak or why the EPA, which is the agency that has expertise on water quality issues, would be told to go jump into the lake.

Even if the Senate rejects this provision, it will remain in the House version of the defense bill. When the conference committee fashions a compromise between the two versions, this noxious provision needs to be sent to Davy Jones’ locker.

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