Ballast Water Management Convention (BWM)

In the mid-1980s, the zebra mussel arrives in North America's Great Lakes in the ballast of cargo ships from Europe, multiplies, clogs the water intakes of power plants and factories, and costs billions of dollars over three decades. An empty ship takes on seawater to stabilize, discharges it at the next loading port, and carries organisms with it from one ocean to another. The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, adopted in 2004 and in force on September 8, 2017, responds. It sets the D-2 standard: fewer than ten viable organisms larger than 50 microns per cubic meter, and thresholds for microorganisms, met by onboard treatment systems, ultraviolet, filtration, electrochlorination. New ships are fitted at delivery. Existing ships were fitted over the course of their certificate renewal surveys, on a schedule ending September 8, 2024. Each ship keeps a ballast water record book and a management plan. For the insurer, the practical points are claims from treatment system breakdowns, detentions and fines by port States, notably the United States, which has its own rules, and the question of whether the bill for a failed system is covered. It is not: it is a maintenance expense.