9th Circuit Victory to Regulate Ballast Water

July 23, 2008 - PEAC won a critical victory in the Ninth Circuit this July on behalf of Northwest Environmental Advocates, The Ocean Conservancy, and San Francisco Baykeeper, forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate the discharge of ballast water under the Clean Water Act.

Ten years after PEAC student Brent Foster L’99 first suggested and helped to draft a petition to the EPA asking it to eliminate its exemption of “incidental discharges” from Clean Water Act regulation, the Ninth Circuit has now affirmed that ships arriving in all United States ports will need to obtain discharge permits before dumping their ballast water or be in violation of the law, placing 21 billion gallons of water, for the first time, under federal regulation.

Ballast water, discharged by ships for stabilization, is a major source of invasive species and other pollutants in waters of the United States. As recognized by the Ninth Circuit, invasive species harm native threatened and endangered species and cost our economy $137 billion per year, more than double the annual economic damage of all natural disasters in the U.S.

Melissa Powers argued the case while a staff attorney at PEAC, co-counseling with Deborah Sivas, now at the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic. 

Oct. 26, 2008 - Check out this Oregonian article that discusses the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and its refusal to go along with a federal permit proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Related Content

• Ballast Water Opinion 9th.pdf (PDF)
• Ballast Press Release (PDF)