Ballast Water Treatment Systems Lab USCG Recognized

NSF International gains United States Coast Guard acceptance as Independent laboratory for ballast water management system testing.

 NSF International (NSF), an independent public health organization, has become the first Independent Laboratory (IL) accepted by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to evaluate and test technologies designed to treat ballast water on ships in order to prevent the spread of non-native aquatic species in lakes, rivers and coastal waters.

NSF is leading a partnership between Retlif Testing Laboratories (Retlif), the Great Ships Initiative (GSI) and the Maritime Environmental Resource Center (MERC) to test and evaluate systems to the Coast Guard requirements.

They have provided support to the USCG for more than 30 years as a recognized facility for testing and evaluation of marine sanitation devices and oil pollution prevention equipment. NSF is also the verification partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Water Quality Protection Center (WQPC) of the Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) program, which verifies commercial-ready technologies that protect ground- and surface waters from contamination.

The WQPC, with valuable contributions from a large number of ballast water treatment stakeholders, developed the protocols to be used for this BWMS testing. NSF is a global independent organization with nearly 70 years of public health and safety expertise.

Ms. Allegra Cangelosi, President of Northeast-Midwest Institute and Director of the Great Ships Initiative, remarked, "We are excited that the hard work involved in setting up our testing programs will assist the new USCG BWMS type approval process to assure effective and efficient BWMS on ships."