The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

by Dan Egan

But the Environmental Protection Agency left one huge loophole in the law the year after it was passed when it expanded an exemption for water discharges from military vessels to all ships sailing in U.S. waters. The agency was likely motivated by the notion that without a ship discharge exemption, its regulators could be on the hook to somehow police millions of recreational boats. Whatever the reason, the agency clearly did not see freighter discharges as a threat. “This type of discharge generally causes little pollution,” the EPA explained when it published the regulation creating the exemption, “and the exclusion of vessel wastes from the permit requirements will reduce administrative costs drastically.” But it would cost the Great Lakes dearly. As the zebra mussel infestation of the Great Lakes would make it abundantly clear, biologically contaminated ballast water is the worst kind of pollution because it cannot be fixed by plugging a pipe or capping a smokestack. It does not decay and it does not disperse. It breeds.