Ballast Waters: Protection of Adriatic Sea – Common Goal

A meeting of a trilateral Croatian – Slovenian – Italian Committee for the protection of the Adriatic Sea and Coastal Area is currently being organized in the city of Opatija (4&5 July).

The members of that Comittee concluded today that the protection of the Adriatic Sea from ballast waters was a common goal based on a more intensified control of such polluted waters.

It was further concluded that a sub-committee for ballast waters should define more clearly the most effective ways of controlling those waters and the best procedures for handling them, taking in consideration the susceptibility of the Adriatic Sea.

Based on reports from the meeting, the Croatian analyses included water from the ballast tank and sea in the Šibenik region, an area which reported a larger part of all the released ballast waters.

Also confirmed was the necessity to set up a Croatian statute on handling and controlling water ballast and sediment by the end of 2006.

The Slovenian side reported that most of the ballast waters in the port of Kopar were coming from the ports in the Northern Adriatic.

Italy created a national structure for gathering data on ballast waters. For now there is now effective way for eliminating harmful organisms before the unloading of ballast waters, so the representatives of that country proposed to consider the criteria for determining a possible spot for the exchange of ballast waters. They added that the Adriatic Sea was not a convenient area for the transshipment of ballast waters, and that the whole problem should be considered on the level of the entire Mediterranean.

The Commission decided that the governments of all three countries should receive by the end of 2006 the proposal to decide on the ratification of the Sub-regional plan for interventions in the Adriatic.

Croatia initiated that the Adriatic Sea should be pronounced a protected area, proposing that by November this year a list of joint proposals should be produced and presented to the IMO Committee for the protection of the maritime environment by March 2007. This proposal was supported today by the Italian and Slovenian delegation, defining that the project should be realized via the Sub-committee for ballast waters.

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