The shipping industry has long addressed environmental concerns, initially focusing on chemical and oil spills. In the 1980s, aquatic nuisance species (ANS) emerged as a major issue. In general, they are transplanted organisms—often via ballast water—that can quickly grow in their new homes. To address this challenge, over the last three decades, ballast water management in the United States has evolved from a voluntary program to an extensively regulated operation today.
Ballast water is water loaded by vessels to control their stability, trim, draft, or stresses (USCG 2012). Ballast tanks are usually sealed or have minimal light from vents. Thus, most organisms die in transit, but some survive and colonize new areas. A well-known example is the zebra mussel, which was introduced to the Great Lakes via ballast water (Hebert et al. 1989), caused great ecological and economic damage, and prompted enactment of the 1990 Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act (NANPCA).
Over the next 20 years, there was a lot of action regarding ballast water in the United States. Currently, both the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are responsible for regulating ballast water discharges and do so via similar, albeit not identical, regimes. Both agencies have the same “performance standard”, which greatly limits the concentration of living organisms allowable in vessels’ discharges.
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"A Quick Dive Into U.S. Ballast Water Regulations," by Jeanne M. Grasso, Lisa Drake, and Aristea Zacharopoulou was published in The Barrister, a Broward County Bar Association publication, in May 2025.
