Section Marine and Ocean Ecosystems

BALLAST WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE BLACK SEA BASIN

PhD Student Valerian Novac

Prof. Dr. Luminița Moraru
Lect. Dr. Florin Onea
Prof. Dr. Eugen Rusu
"Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Romania

ABSTRACT
Being an almost landlocked sea, the Black Sea has a particular situation regarding water
exchange and circulation. Moreover, the anthropogenic pressure and shipping related
activities worsen the situation of this sea from the pollution point of view. The
introductory part of the article presents the role of the ballast water system onboard
ships in a few words. Then, the paper presents the environmental context of the Black
Sea with the focus on the wind and waves, factors which can affect the ship stability.
The Ballast Water Management aim is to reduce the risk to the environment, human
health, property, and resources emerging from conveying harmful aquatic organisms
and pathogens through ballast waters and sediments. The article also presents an
evaluation of the ballast water discharged in the Black Sea basin, based on the available
data regarding ships and goods traffic, with a focus on Constanta port and its satellites.
The scoop also investigates the environmental factors which favor the circulation and
spreading of invasive species from ports area to open waters. The paper analyzes the
international and European Union regulatory framework regarding Ballast Water
Management across the Black Sea basin and the implementation of these provisions by
riparian states. The concluding section of the articles investigates and identifies the
procedures, methods, equipment along with decision support tools used onboard ships
and by ports authorities to diminish the negative impact of harmful aquatic organisms.
Keywords: Black Sea, ballast water, harmful aquatic organism, pollution, marine
environment.

INTRODUCTION
The Black Sea dwells of an almost land-locked basin located in the south-eastern part of
the European continent and bounded by latitudes 40 – 460 N and longitudes 27 - 410E.
It communicates with other sea basins through Bosphorus Strait with the Marmara Sea
and the Azov Sea through the Kerch Strait.
The Black Sea, the third-largest sea basin of Europe, has an area of 411 540 km2 and a
volume of 555 000 km3 while the median depth is 1315 m, and the ceiling value 2258
m. The basin consists of two sub-basins with the western part less deep and with shelf
extending up to 100 nautical miles and the eastern one on more in-depth and with a
modest shelf that rarely exceeds ten nautical miles.
The roughly 3400 km of shoreline shared by six countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey,
Georgia, Russian Federation, and Ukraine [1].
Though, the heights of the waves in above mention sea basin are not as big as in the
open ocean, especially in the winter season the wind is strong enough to generate waves
which can adversely impact the safety of the navigation. During high seas periods, the

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ships' stability is affected and, especially when navigating empty or partially loaded
ships, need to take ballast water on board to improve their stability [2, 3].
The main functions of ballast water on board of a ship are:
- adjust ships draught to facilitate correct operations of the propeller;
- regulate the structural stress given by the odd distribution of weights onboard;
- enhance ship stability:
- amend the trim to diminish the running cost of the ship [3, 4].
When a ship takes ballast water onboard, this water comes inevitably with a constituent
of the species that usually live in that area [5].
The operation of ballasting usually occurs when a ship is unloading the cargo, and vice
versa happens when the ship is loading. Consequently, a ship carries ballast water from
a port located in a specific area with a specific fauna and transports it to a port of
loading situated in another region or sea basin with utterly different habitat and species
[3, 6]. The ship can be fully loaded when no need for ballast in tanks or empty or not
fully loaded with ballast tanks full or partially loaded with water ballast. The second
situation presents interest for our paper when ship carries ballast, along with
accompanying fauna species, from one region to another. The essential operations in
this regard are ballasting or de-ballasting the ship, graphically presented in figure 1 [3].

a b
Figure 1. Ballasting (a) and de-ballasting (b) of a mineral carrier – author contribution
after [4]
When the area of discharge of new species is out of their geographical range, they are
called alien species or the term stated by the International Convention on the
Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments – Harmful Aquatic Organisms and
Pathogens (HAOP). In many cases, the HAOPs do not survive in the new environment,
but when they survive, they can harm the local environment, economy, or human health
[3, 4, 6].
The Black Sea, with its weak exchange of water and deeper layers of water anoxic due
to modest vertical exchange and stratification, is more sensitive to such invasions [1, 3,
5].
Table 1 presents just a few of the HAOPs present in the Black Sea basin and which
harmful impact established. From these aliens, special attention requires a comb jelly,
the scientific name – Mnemiopsis leidyi spotted firstly in 1982 in the Black Sea basin
then growing in a massive number with a catastrophic impact on fishery the area
competing for food with local fish [3, 5 – 7]. At least for a while, the fragile Black Sea
ecosystem's situation has improved almost naturally by an invasion of another alien –
Beroe ovate, which primary source of food is the jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi. This
improvement is still questionable as the impact of the natural separation of the two
aliens is unknown; most probably, Beroe ovate will be extinct due to lack of food,
and Mnemiopsis leidyi will resume the invasion [4, 6 - 8].

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Table 1. HAOPs in the Black Sea basin [3, 6]

Species Origin Year of introduction
Rathkea octopunctata Atlanto-Mediterranean 1959
Mnemiopsis leidyi North Atlantic 1987
Beroe ovata North Atlantic 1998
Rapana venosa Indo-Pacific 1963
Anadara (Scapharca) inaequivalvis Indo-Pacific 1984
Mya arenaria North Atlantic 1968
Neocalanus gracilis Pacific 1979
Mesocalanus tenuicornis Cosmopolite 1979
Mecynocera clausi Cosmopolite 1979
Palaemon macrodactylus Indo-Pacific 2009
Microsetella rosea Cosmopolite 1960
The ballast water management, regulated at the international level through the
International Convention on the Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments,
which enforce standards like D - 1 about ballast water exchange and D - 2 regarding the
treatment of the ballast water. The standard D – 2 provisions states that ballast water
discharged must encompass:
- less than 10 viable organisms per m3 with less than 50 μm in size,
- less than 10 viable organisms per ml with sizes less than 50 μm but more than
or equal 10 μm [3, 5, 9].
Not all riparian states of the Black Sea, adopted the Convention, the status of adoption
presented in table 2.
Table 2. Status of International Convention on the Management of Ships’ Ballast Water
and Sediments adoption [4]
State Date of entry into force
Romania N/A
Bulgaria 30.07.2018
Turkey* 08.09.2017
Georgia 08.09.2017
Russian Federation 08.09.2017
Ukraine N/A
*declaration.
Roughly, 25% of the world fleet complies with D-2 standard while 75% is D-1
conversant, the provision of Convention is that up to the first IOPP (International Oil
Pollution Prevention) survey conducted beyond 07.09.2019 all ships should comply
with D-2 standard [4].
The shipping in the Black Sea basin, in line with the global one, is on an ascending
trend. In tables 2, 3, and 4 presents just a quantification of these values of traffic [10,
11].

METHOD
The current paper aim is to assess the actual quantity of ballast water potentially
discharged within the Romanian ports area and to identify effective means and methods
to comply with international requirements in the field.

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Table 3. Number of ships sailing through Bosphorus Strait to Black Sea [10]
Year /number of ships
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Ship type
Crude Oil Tanker 2436 2383 2284 2959 2843 2799 2877
Chemical Tanker 1796 1673 1608 890 782 819 793
General Cargo 15832 15323 15117 13582 12690 12055 11183
Container Ship 898 952 1047 1347 1434 1536 1329
Bulk Carrier 2286 1 888 2097 3571 3443 3648 3724
Liquid Petroleum Gas Carrier 375 467 546 668 880 766 615
Tugs 124 125 115 136 114 112 140
Vehicles Carrier 115 151 208 18 24 46 8
Refrigerated Ships 257 237 160 128 97 31 12
Others 331 588 606 884 885 980 1032
Total 24450 23787 23788 24183 23192 22792 21713
The quantity of ballast water satisfactorily estimated with the following relation:
𝟑𝟕.𝟕𝟐
𝑩𝑾 = 𝑫𝑾 𝑪𝑪 (1)
𝟗𝟒
where:
BW – ballast water;
DWCC – deadweight cargo capacity [3].

Table 4. Quantities of goods handled in main ports from Romania, Bulgaria, and
Turkey (x000 tons) [11]
Year
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Country (port)
Romania 36094 38122 38918 39520 43577 43753 44533 46295 46182 49107
Constanta 29181 30396 30978 31938 35650 34789 36277 37521 37298 39530
Midia 4200 4349 4922 5179 5565 6588 6016 6855 7078 7559
Bulgaria 21893 22946 25185 26012 28841 27235 27166 28685 30953 27868
Burgas 13337 12822 13520 14868 15851 15658 16076 17123 18656 16661
Varna 8556 10125 11665 11144 12990 11577 11090 11562 12297 11207
Turkey: Black Sea 24504 16897 20865 25119 25351 24931 26171 27032 31434 31269
Bartin 1137 1110 1146 1309 1779 1485 1463 1123 1295 1272
Fatsa 223 284 599 366 270 290 256 199 204 153
Giresun 197 194 158 255 251 137 164 108 111 48
Hopa 473 566 576 852 841 640 875 845 733 642
Inebolu 270 258 270 454 326 424 298 338 537 569
Rize 726 790 1006 1138 1139 1080 870 935 830 779
Samsun 6435 7279 7304 8721 9103 9296 9728 9950 12210 11715
Tirebolu 80 308 401 509 522 404 382 393 372 436
Trabzon 2543 2636 2767 3227 3116 2797 3377 3593 3817 3005
Unye 1330 1522 1347 1501 1275 1325 1138 1501 1358 1522
Zonguldak 1568 1633 4927 6501 6542 6912 7531 8018 9922 11046

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Table 5. Number of vessels in main ports from Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey [11]
Year
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Country (port)
Romania 1986 1822 4749 4678 4593 4320 4191 4168 3968 4044
Constanta 1555 1555 3871 3768 3637 3384 3302 3270 3125 3145
Midia 249 183 441 534 590 595 544 592 546 554
Bulgaria 2941 3168 3566 3648 3620 3354 3067 3054 3320 3121
Burgas 1215 1299 1488 1548 1509 1594 1446 1447 1637 1617
Varna 1726 1869 2078 2100 2111 1760 1621 1607 1683 1504
Turkey (Black Sea) 4255 6111 6305 6759 6524 5751 5505 10109 5395 5030
Bartin 116 438 481 490 612 515 415 976 337 332
Fatsa 93 135 280 141 92 100 93 214 70 54
Giresun 55 66 72 87 95 59 86 442 46 28
Hopa 246 180 205 309 291 225 258 401 189 145
Inebolu 17 181 188 251 173 221 123 418 180 168
Rize 212 321 408 412 349 296 228 783 213 214
Samsun 1484 2109 2192 2417 2343 2443 2448 3.020 2612 2467
Tirebolu 59 89 93 109 155 93 70 364 48 60
Trabzon 884 965 805 943 1016 713 686 1299 704 544
Unye 90 596 505 585 436 387 313 576 369 395
Zonguldak 575 689 770 784 794 545 619 1107 575 579

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We observed that the gross weight of goods in ports is satisfactory for calculation of
BW. For the year of 2018, assuming that the ships followed the global pattern and 75%
require ballast water treatment during ballasting and de-ballasting operations to curb the
adverse effect of the potential contamination with HAOPs of BW. Thus, for 39530
thousand tons of goods handled result, based on the previous assumption, in 15862
thousand tons of potentially harmful BW.
The port of Constanta called, in 2018, by ships meeting D-2 criteria in the same
proportion as the world fleet, and its capacity (2004) for treating BW was 7600
thousand tons per year.

Figure 2. Mobile BW treatment solution for port - container [12]

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The Port of Constanta, through the project PROTECT took measures to improve the
capacity of BW treatment in the port through creating an onshore treatment plant and
contracting a multipurpose tank of 500 tdw able to take onboard BW, beside sewage
and oil contaminated waters [13].
The decision to invest in retrofitting actual fleet or port solutions is not easy,
considering a plethora of costs involved by such a decision [14, 15].
Table 6. The cost involved by retrofitting or adding new BW treatment facilities [14,
15]
Cost bearer Category of cost Type of expenditure
Acquisition of BWT system
Capital Retrofit of pumping and piping
Docking to install a new system
Maintenance
Shipowner and
Consumables
operator Operation
Personnel
Insurances
Additional fuel/energy
Voyage
Port fares
Additional land
Capital Reception and treatment facilities
Laboratory, storage
Port state and port Operational and environmental monitoring
operators Consumables
Operation Inspections
Maintenance
Personnel

Figure 3. BW treatment barge for port operations [12]

Though, the investment decision is challenging to be taken, to remain competitive on a
growing shipping market require adequate solutions. Besides the tanker recently
contracted the Constanta Port can improve its treatment capacity by adding mobile
containers and barges (fig. 2, 3). These mobile solutions provide the port with flexibility
and versatility, offering services at BWM Convention standards and being able to

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operate with more units at the same time serving many ships or de-ballasting hoses at
the same time.
Besides increased costs of retrofitting BW systems on existing ships or adding BWT
port facilities they have some disadvantages:
- operate at high pressure;
- discharge of hot water;
- sampling required before discharging;
- increase time in port necessary for the treatment of ballasting or de-ballasting
water;
- salinity dependence;
- hazardous chemicals [14].
Table 7. The cost involved by retrofitting or adding new BW treatment facilities [12]
Value range
Feature
Container Barge
Treated rated capacity 5 – 300 m3/h 4000 m3/h
Filtration & Low
Technology
Pressure High Intensity Filtration
UV
Sea water temperature 0° to +35° C max. +35° C
Ambient temperature - 20° C to +45° C -5° to +45° C

CONCLUSIONS
The actual provisions of international regulations ask for compliance with D – 2 BWT
standards in the next four years, a requirement that will come with additional challenges
like supplementary expenditure, acquisition and installation of new equipment, training
for personnel, and potential pressure on the environment through different.
The Black Sea basin is sensitive to new alien species invasion taking into consideration
the recrudescence of species like Mnemiopsis leidyi at the end of the `80s with a
disastrous impact on local fishery.
The port states, authorities, ship owners, and operators need to be aware and sensitized
regarding ballast water treatment issues, its necessity, and implications and working
together to share the financial and another kind of costs or risks to contain the potential
HAOPs invasion.
For Port Constanta, in particular, to remain competitive and increase its economic
potential and capacity of operation is mandatory to continue its commitment to invest in
new mobile and onshore capacities of treating ballast water following international
conventions and regulations provisions in the field.

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