Fish Virus Could Limit Shipping

[KING ME]

Fish Virus Could Limit Shipping

Michigan seeks ban on ballast from eastern Great Lakes

By Dan Egan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

The shipping industry has been blamed in recent years for introducing many of the invasive species that are ravaging what's left of the Great Lakes native fish populations, but the fight to stop the spread of the latest microscopic invader might just threaten the monstrous freighters themselves.

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia, known as VHS, was discovered in the Great Lakes basin just last year, and already it has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of fish in the eastern Great Lakes.

The virus, which bleeds its victims to death, doesn't pose a danger to humans. But the potential for it to spread into the nation's other waterways so spooked the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, that it ordered some fast and drastic steps to contain it.

Three weeks ago, the agency issued an "emergency" order that blocks the live export of 37 fish species from any of the eight Great Lakes states, a potentially crippling blow to fish farmers at a time of year when they typically harvest and ship their stock. The order also threatened to snarl cooperative interstate fish stocking programs and live bait shipments that help sustain the Great Lakes' $4.5 billion fishing industry.

The federal order was blasted as overkill by the fish farming industry and the scientific community that works with it, and on Tuesday, the order was relaxed to allow some exports under a rigid set of new rules.

But now that the federal government has rung the fire bell to alert the region to the dangers of this particularly contagious virus, the state of Michigan apparently wants more.

It wants the shipping industry to shape up.

Specifically, the Michigan Natural Resources Commission wants the federal government to order an emergency ban on freighters filling their ballast water tanks in the virus-infected waters of Lakes Erie, Ontario and St. Clair, as well as the St. Lawrence River. The idea is to protect the virus-free Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior.

Ballast water is necessary for freighters because it stabilizes and maintains the structural integrity of a less-than-full cargo vessel, so a prohibition against it could devastate the shipping industry.

No ballast, no shipping

"Wow. Ships can't operate if they can't take on and discharge ballast," said Glen Nekvasil, spokesman for the Lake Carriers' Association, which represents U.S. shippers operating inside the Great Lakes, a group that moves about 125 million tons of cargo annually. "A ban on ballast uptakes would bring shipping to a halt."

The request came in a Nov. 9 resolution from the governor-appointed, bipartisan commission that oversees the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. It was forwarded to APHIS early last week.

Jennifer Nalbone of the conservation group Great Lakes United, agrees that a ban on taking on ballast in VHS-infected Great Lakes waters is a draconian concept that could kill traditional shipping routes, but it doesn't surprise her.

"As far as the state's perspective, it makes total sense," she said. "They don't want their fisheries getting hammered. . . . This is the reality of the Great Lakes right now - we are contaminated with biological pollution, and it's the ships that are moving it around."

The scientists who know most about Great Lakes invasive species say the risk that ballast water poses in moving VHS to the upper Great Lakes is clear. It may take decades for the virus to make its way into these lakes on its own. And because navigation locks on the St. Marys River provide some insulation between Lake Superior and all the other, it may never get into Lake Superior at all.

Although nobody knows if the virus itself could survive in the open water splashing around in a ballast tank, it doesn't necessarily need to; it could hop a ride on an infected fish sucked into a ballast tank.

Indeed, one of the species that has been most susceptible to VHS die-offs in the eastern Great Lakes is the round goby, itself an invasive species from Europe that scientists believe was brought into the Great Lakes more than a decade ago by overseas freighters traveling up the St. Lawrence Seaway.

So the equation is pretty simple: Gobies can be transported by ballast tanks, and gobies themselves can carry the virus.

"Very clearly, if you have any of these infected species in locations where ships would be drawing up ballast water, they could be moved," said Hugh MacIsaac, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Windsor.

More research needed

While some question whether APHIS would have jurisdiction to issue a ballast ban, APHIS spokeswoman Hallie Pickhardt said her agency's staff will be meeting with other federal agencies to evaluate the danger ballast water discharges pose in spreading the virus throughout the Great Lakes.

"It's a possible (transmission) source, but we need to conduct more research to learn more about it," Pickhardt said. "Everything we do is based on science, and at this point, we don't have the scientific evidence to restrict ballast water in the federal order."

Jeffrey Gunderson, the associate director of the Minnesota Sea Grant College Program, is dubious.

Gunderson still can't figure out what science APHIS relied upon when it issued its initial emergency order on Oct. 24 banning the export of so many fish species from all the Great Lakes states, even though the western Great Lakes states have yet to be infected.

Minnesota, for example, is hundreds of miles from the nearest VHS-infected waters in Michigan. And he said 93% of the state lies outside the Great Lakes basin. Further, Gunderson said, none of Minnesota's fish farming exporters operates inside the sliver of land that is inside the Great Lakes basin. That means there is no natural pathway between them and the virus.

"The aquaculture industry in Minnesota is not any more of a risk of transporting the disease than those (fish farmers) in South Dakota or Iowa," he said. "The reasoning doesn't seem logical or based on science."

Yet neither Gunderson nor anyone else is ready to discount the risk the virus poses to the nation.

"It is the most serious fish disease problem that we've seen, and it's so serious because it's so deadly and it affects so many species," said Myron Kebus, Wisconsin's state fish health veterinarian.

The disease was discovered in Europe about a half-century ago, where it initially ravaged rainbow trout hatcheries, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It was first recorded in U.S. waters in the late 1980s in Pacific Northwest salmon. The disease has also been found on the Atlantic coast, but the Great Lakes were considered VHS-free until 2005, when the virus was linked to massive musky die-offs in Lakes Ontario and St. Clair.

Scientists have since determined that the Great Lakes have been infected with a mutated strain of the virus, one that appears to be particularly dangerous because it may affect far more species than its coastal cousins, including such popular regional species as whitefish, yellow perch, trout and salmon.

More than 180 non-native organisms now call the Great Lakes home, and research shows that over the past few decades a new invader has been discovered, on average, about every 6 months. Most are coming in the ballast tanks of overseas freighters, but so far there is no direct evidence blaming ballast tanks on overseas freighters for the arrival of this new virus in the lakes.

Scientist MacIsaac said he suspects another pathway.

"You have aquaculture. Live fish food markets. Aquarium shops. All could be potential sources," he said.

But MacIsaac points out that VHS is spotlighting an issue that has so far been largely ignored in the Great Lakes invasive species debate - the role Great Lakes-specific freighters, or "lakers," play in the spread of unwanted species once they get into the Great Lakes.

To date, most attention has been paid to the oceangoing freighters, which account for only about 7% of the total cargo moved on the Great Lakes and Seaway system. Those overseas ships, which travel from the Atlantic Ocean into the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway, bring the outside species into the lakes. But, MacIsaac said, lakers likely play a part in dispersing invasive species once they get a foothold in the lakes.

Literally stuck inside the Great Lakes because they are too big to transit the Seaway locks, lakers have been spared much of the controversy - and the potential expense - surrounding ballast treatment systems that might soon be ordered for overseas vessels. But now the focus that the federal government and the state of Michigan have recentlyput on controlling the regional spread of this latest virus could change that.

Still, many people simply can't fathom what would essentially be a federal ban on shipping between the eastern and western Great Lakes; that traffic of iron ore and other raw materials is simply too big of a piece of the region's economy.

"That would be a pretty radical step to take," said Bruce Baker, deputy administrator of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' water division. "There certainly is a crisis. Whether the response needs to be this strong is something that needs to be talked about."

Given the value of the Great Lakes fishing industry and the worries the disease could spread, it almost certainly will be.

Ann Wilson, spokeswoman for the Michigan DNR, calls the emergency ballast ban "a big request."

"Whether it passes remains to be seen," Wilson said. "But we're anxious to see what they're willing to do for us."

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has yet to adopt an opinion on the commission's request.

"It's under review," spokeswoman Heidi Watson said.

The governor's cautious tack is not surprising, because rather than just trying to contain a virus, her agency might have opened a can of worms - pitting in a public way the value of the shipping industry against the very waters it floats upon.

"When we have no controls on these species and pathogens that are moving around the lakes and when one hits us, everybody points fingers. And everybody is to blame," said conservationist Nalbone. "There are no winners here."

Information about viral hemorrhagic septicemia from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is available at www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/fish/vhsv.html