mepi finalist for the golden jubilee award

Development of a Ballast Water Processing System
Submitted for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award, 2003
Authors: C.E. (Bud) Leffler1, Bill Paul1, Andrew Rogerson2, Courtney Campell2, Sarah
Grubbs2, Jon Stewart1, Vittorio Antonelli3, Ann Salamone1

1Marine Environmental Partners, Inc. (MEP)
Address: 3874 Fiscal Court, Suite 200
West Palm Beach, Florida 33404
Phone: 561-842-9900 Fax: 561-842-9922

Email: [email protected] Website: www.mepi.net
2Nova Southeastern University, Florida, USA
3ISIR, S.p.A., Genoa, Italy

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has designated ballast water transfer as
the fourth greatest threat to our oceans’ waters. There has been a massive search for a
technology that could meet the ballast system goals of the shipping industry. These are
ballast water systems that are:
1) capable of sanitizing the ballast fluid.
2) affordable to install on existing ships as well as new-build ships.
3) safe to operate and do not impede the ships ballasting operation.
4) economical to operate.
5) capable of modularization so as to fit into existing spaces.
6) not creators of dangerous carcinogens and that do not effect normal sea life after
discharge.
Marine Environmental Partners Inc. (MEP) has addressed the needs identified above and
after 21/2 years of laboratory research and ship-board pilot plant studies has developed a
ballast water processing system that meets or exceeds the above goals. MEP’s MariSan®
system for ballast water management was purchased by Carnival, with installation begun
in January 2003.
Unlike most of the other approaches to the problem where a single technology has been
utilized, such as heating the ballast water or adding chemicals, MEP has approached the
problem with a series of technologies that work in synergy with one another to not only
effectively remove and destroy the biota in ballast water, but to also produce an effluent
to the sea which has no harmful effects on sea life.
The modules that encompass our system have been designed so that they may be applied
in a variety of applications and sizes, and to have multiple modules, which may be
paralleled together to increase the amount of ballast water processed. Ships may be
operated with a single system, such as a cruise ship that takes on ballast water in an
amount to equal the fuel burned each day, or may be operated with multiple systems for
ballasting cargo.
The system has been designed to remove at least 95% of the biota in the ballast water.
The operational costs of the 1000 GPM system are $0.005 / metric ton. This is below the
cost of adding chemicals and will set a cost standard that will be difficult to achieve with
most technologies. The compact system has been designed to surpass contemplated
standards and is automated to change its configuration to optimize decontamination, to
self- repair by turning on additional back-up units when problems are sensed, to selfreport
and generate information for remote troubleshooting, and is being developed to
notify shore-based facilities that the ballast has been treated. The electrical system is built
to Lloyd’s society classification standards and UL specifications.
We believe this technology will not only revolutionize the management of ballast, but
that there are ship-based applications where seawater, filtered to remove organisms over
50 microns in size and disinfected, can be utilized. In addition to a ballast water
treatment system, MEP has built a prototype wastewater system, which has been
sanitizing ship wastewater at the Grand Bahamas Shipyard for 6 months, producing
crystal clear water from black water and exceeding the discharge standards of most
countries. Other systems are in development and we should see commercial products
within the next year.