On the lower Columbia River, a natural 

 boundary between the states of Oregon and 

 Washington, at least 61 of the 292 known plant 

 and animal species are non-native. Some, such 

 as the Asian clam ( Corbiculaflumine, so 

 thoroughly dominate the sediment in some 

 stretches of the Columbia that little else can 

 survive. If that's not bad enough, these 



dumped. For nearly two years, Herwig' s crew 

 has been testing the new equipment in the field, 

 working aboard the oil tanker S/T Tonsina. 

 It is one of a fleet of tankers that carries oil — 

 and ballast water — from the Port of Valdez 

 in Southeast Alaska, to Long Beach, Calif., 

 Puget Sound, Wash., and other destinations 

 along the Pacific Ocean coast. 



ballast water — and the Tonsina would provide 

 a demonstration opportunity to evaluate how the 

 ozone theories would translate to real shipboard 

 experiences. 



HARMLESS, HI-TECH FIX 



Ozone gas is produced when an electrical 

 impulse is shot through air that is rich ir 



LEFT TO RIGHT TOP TO BOTTOM: The deck of the Tonsina — note ballast tanks along the sides and bottom of the tanker. Ballast water-sampling 

 equipment at the ready. Filling a sample bottle with water pumped from one of the Tonsina 's 12 ballast tanks. Fine-meshed zooplankton nets capture 

 ballast water organisms. Zooplankton samples are concentrated in the plankton net and placed in a plastic container. 



introduced pests can proliferate to such a degree 

 that, like zebra mussels, they will eventually clog 

 irrigation ditches and fish screens. 



With funding from a National Sea Grant 

 initiative and other sources, Cooper and his 

 West Coast counterpart, Russ Herwig, with the 

 Washington Sea Grant Program in Seattle, are 

 looking at ways to curb future introductions of 

 ballast water organisms along the nation's coasts. 



For the past three years, Cooper has been 

 working with a team of scientists to develop the 

 technology to treat ballast water before it is 



This collaborative project began several 

 years ago, when the Tonsina\ principal owner, 

 British Petroleum, recruited Nutech 03, Inc. of 

 MacLean, Va., to develop and design a shipboard 

 ballast water treatment system, using ozone as the 

 active ingredient. Nutech recruited Cooper to 

 oversee the ozone chemistry at play. 



In turn, Cooper contacted Herwig and his 

 colleagues at the University of Washington, 

 asking them to conduct field tests of the system. 

 Cooper and Herwig saw the national and 

 international importance of applied research on 



"When you smell the air after a lightning 

 storm, you're smelling ozone," Cooper explains. 

 Ozone has been used for decades to disinfect 

 drinking water, swimming pools and aquariums. 

 It is incredibly effective at killing bacteria and 

 viruses in water. Because it degrades quickly, 

 reverting back to oxygen, it is safe for these 

 freshwater applications. 



Today, the Tonsina is equipped with 

 almost seven kilometers of stainless steel tubing 

 through which ozone gas is conveyed to the 

 ship's ballast water. The process is relatively 



8 HOLIDAY 2003 



