21 



Captain Donohoe. If I might add, too, Mr. Chairman, I think as 

 part of the response, there are a lot of different barns out there 

 with a lot of different doors. And I think one of the things we are 

 looking at and one of the component parts of the draft legislation is 

 to do a study, to take a look at other gdternatives. Chlorine may be 

 a chemical that will work, but there may be others that will work 

 better and do not pose a threat to the environment. 



We believe there are alternative opportunities to treat ballast 

 water and if we can take a look at whether it is a chemical treat- 

 ment, a thermal treatment, sound treatment, light treatment, 

 whatever, and do some cost analysis, we will be in a markedly 

 better position to select those that might be viable for demonstra- 

 tion projects. 



And I think the other point Mr. Ryan made was there is an 

 awful lot of boats coming into the U.S. that don't carry the U.S. 

 flag, and this is going to be a significant shift in operations; that 

 we will have to take a look at how we are going to solve the prob- 

 lem once we identify the technologies. 



Mr. Shupp. Another comment, Mr. Chairman, on the barn door 

 concept. 



There are two fish diseases, one bacterial, one viral, that are not 

 now present on this continent to any degree. If brought into a 

 coastal environment, or a Great Lakes environment, on a fish; 

 brought in through ballast exchange; those two diseases could liter- 

 ally devastate the native salmon and trout populations in the 

 Great Lakes. 



The private and public fish hatcheries in this country, as we 

 know them today could be out of business, until we fought our way 

 back, recovered and regained ability to manage around those dis- 

 eases. This is one of the biggest fears we in the fishery manage- 

 ment business have with this ballast exchange issue. And that barn 

 door, if ever opened, would devastate our fisheries very quickly, 

 very quickly, and have a multibillion dollar impact. 



So we have lots of doors we do not want to open and that is cer- 

 tainly one of them that would be the most acute and could happen 

 at any given time. 



Dr. Carlton. If I could address again this issue of the futility of 

 this. I would hate for anybody to leave this hearing thinking that it 

 was too late or that the problem is so massive and complex with 

 these thousands of vessels from many different nations, ships from 

 one to 30 years old are coming in and so forth, that it was too 

 much to really handle. 



What we are talking about is quarantine science, and what we 

 are trying to throw out here is a blanket across wholesale release 

 of ballast water with no control. In many ways, any quarantine 

 system that we would effect will have holes in it, and so there is no 

 implication here that this is going to be a solid wall and after we 

 build that wall no invasions will come in by ballast water. 



We have in place in this country, through the U.S. Department 

 of Agriculture and its quarantine systems, one of the most sophisti- 

 cated means to intercept exotic insects coming into this country. 

 And after many decades of this work, and with hundreds of inspec- 

 tion stations and really superb work, invasions continue. But we do 

 not think that it is not working. We celebrate what is not here. 



