Ship-Mediated Harmful Microbes: Protecting the Great Lakes Ecosystem

Project Description

There is little doubt that microbial hitchhikers in ships threaten economic and environmental assets of the Great Lakes region. In particular, transmission by ballast water of harmful microorganisms could jeopardize free flow of trade as well as ecosystem services. Policy response to this threat currently is disorganized and ineffective because the threat remains poorly understood. Moreover, there is little capacity for accountability, and no proven treatment measures.

This project utilized the expertise of many researchers in and around the basin. These partners include:

• The Northeast Midwest Institute (project coordinator)
• Cornell University
• Old Dominion University
• U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center
• University of Minnesota-Duluth
• The Great Lakes Commission

This integrated research/policy exercise will lead to elimination of the risk of the establishment of harmful non-native microbes introduced by ships in the Great Lakes ecosystem through practical and effective policies. It will achieve this by:

• Building political/regulatory will at the state and federal levels through defining the nature and extent of the hazard;
• Building compliance will within the maritime industry through supplying tools for and a system of direct accountability through harbor and ship monitoring; and
• Channeling this will into useful action through demonstrating effective treatment alternatives.

Both the regulated (carriers, ports and shippers) and the regulators (federal, state and local) will make practical changes to reduce the liabilities to trade and the Great Lakes posed by microbial stow-aways. These changes will include effective ballast treatment and monitoring for newly arrived/arriving harmful organisms.

Workshops

As part of this project work, the Commission held a meeting in Ypsilanti in December 2008 to discuss current monitoring efforts in the basin. The purpose of this meeting was to:

• Propose a goal for, specific benefits of, and needs for a microbe monitoring program
• Define a set of methods (field, lab, data/info) and operations for a pathogen monitoring program spanning the Great Lakes basin in collaboration with existing programs, and
• Explore ways to imbed microbe monitoring in current monitoring programs.

For the meeting agenda and workshop presentations, please click here or on the link at left.

A second workshop will be held in late 2009 to discuss the monitoring framework that will be developed from the first workshop. This meeting will be focused on reviewing the proposed framework and finding ways to incorporate it into existing programs and build support. If you are interested in attending this meeting, please contact Mark Bain at Mark.Bain@cornell.edu.

Project Contact

Allegra Cangelosi with the Northeast Midwest Institute.