Diseased Ballast Water

Diseased Ballast Water

As a cargo ship empties or takes on load, its ballast tanks fill or release water in order to balance the boat properly. Ballast is generally needed to increase the draft of a vessel (how deeply it sits in the water) so that its propellers are adequately submerged. The consequence of taking on these huge quantities of water is that they are most frequently released in environments thousands of miles from where they originated, when a ship reaches its destination.

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Popular Science - 6/5/08 7:04 AM Matt Ransford The Environment bacteria Matt Ransford oceans ships water