Dear Sirs, Our Federal governments believe that the IMO or the EPA are capable of policing the discharges of ballast water, by allowing foreign sea captains,to decide the water quality is safe, is putting people at risk for the next waterborne flu or pathogen to mutate and be passed around the world by ballast systems intentionally or unintentionally. African Swine Virus, cholera are examples of pathogens that thrive in marine brown algae. The day of designer algae,s is already here. One can only wonder what pathogens they could carry, if released into the environment.
Politicians will not address this issue because of economic domination due to lobbying, by the countries that supply our country with their manufactured products. These countries are keeping our largest employers(being retail) supplied, while holding our countries national debt along with large stakes in banks holding Americans mortgages. (are we free?) It must be noted that the Chinese. Koreans,and the Europeans have all established programs and goals to become the world leaders in green shipping. This has been happening while our 2008 senators that were running for president were not able to use their influence to consider ballast dumping a federal issue rather than a states rights issue. I guess they think pathogens can understand the lines man draws on maps. Unfortunately many of the technologies used to clean ballast water could be altered to do more harm than good. Interesting that the house of representative voted 395-7 in favor of federal regulation. One can only wonder how much money and death can be associated with sickness and seasonal flues from pathogens in ballast water. It is paramount to treason that our politicians ignore and allow destruction to our countries environment, and peoples health, as a policy of economic globalization is pursued. We now need everyone to write to our new president to demand that a program be put into to place to stop the game of Russian roulette that the Senate is playing by waiting for a new pathogen to be introduced and mutate killing innocent people in the name of economic globalization. Sincerely,
Don Mitchel