The Great Ships Initiative kicked off last summer with a flurry of accolades and promise that the Superior dockside research facility could help solve the problem of invasive species hitchhiking in ballast water.
The $3.5 million facility is a large-scale, on-land model of a ship's ballast water system where different techniques to kill invasive species can be tested. It's the only such facility on the Great Lakes.
But the system has taken a little longer than expected to get going. While University of Wisconsin-Superior and University of Minnesota Duluth scientists are conducting small-scale laboratory testing on ballast treatment concepts that vendors and scientists have submitted, the dockside facility has not yet been used for full-scale testing.
The facility was test-run last year to see if the system of pipes, pumps and tanks worked. It's hoped the first full-scale test of a new ballast treatment technology could happen soon.
So far, about five technologies are "in the pipeline," being tested at the laboratory level, said Allegra Cangelosi, senior policy analyst for the Northeast-Midwest Institute. So far, none have proven obviously effective or practical enough to move onto the larger testing facility.
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Treatments that prove successful at the Superior facility would then be tested on board ships.
"So far, we haven't found a [proposal] that has been good enough to move on," Cangelosi said.
The Great Ships Initiative is a joint effort of the Northeast-Midwest Institute and American Great Lakes Ports Association, the Great Lakes shipping industry. But the effort includes public research institutions and more than $1 million in public money from Congress and several federal agencies.
Cangelosi said that lab tests have exposed weaknesses of several proposals but that some of the technologies -- both physical and chemical treatments for ballast water -- could move forward as minor changes are made in coming months.
"We hope to have a good candidate soon. But that's the story of a technology incubator like this. There are unexpected hitches in what people propose," she said.
Cangelosi said officials involved in the Great Ships effort are concerned with exposing proprietary information in vendors' proposals, which is why almost no information has been released on the proposed ballast treatment solutions being tested. She said more information on the technologies being tested may be available soon.
