By ideastream's Brian Bull
Environmental groups are praising a ruling today against the U.S. EPA, saying the agency failed to keep American waters safe from invasive species brought in by the ballast water of ships.
The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the federal government has to rewrite regulations on how ballast water is released.
Marc Smith is the Policy Director of the National Wildlife Federation, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He says existing EPA guidelines have not been strong enough to keep harmful non-native organisms like zebra mussels from coming into the Great Lakes. The ruling requires the EPA to go back to the “drawing board”….
"…and come up with a new permit that will show how they can meet water quality standards and prevent aquatic invasive species from coming into our Great Lakes and into our waters," says Smith.
"Specifically in Ohio, where you’re having business owners, industry, having to spend a lot of resources to clean up their pipes, clean their infrastructure from zebra mussels that attach themselves to it. So it’s a really big, devastating hit to the resource, but also to the economy.”
Requests for a response from the EPA were referred to a Justice Department spokesman who was not available for comment.