Ballast Tank Sediment: A Neglected Subject Which Requires Management

Sediment releases from ballast tanks are of concern to the environment as they may contain chemical contaminants and living organisms accumulated since the last docking visit of the vessel. This is one of the reasons why the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004 (IMO 2004) (BWM Convention) also addresses sediment. IMO further developed guidelines for sediment reception facilities (Guidelines G1) and adopted Guidelines G12 to minimize the uptake and undesirable entrapment of sediments, to facilitate removal of sediments and provide safe access to allow for sediment removal. In essence, when a port State offers services where sediment is removed from the tanks, adequate facilities for the reception of sediments should be provided in ports and terminals where the cleaning and repairing of ballast tanks occurs. Further, each State shall report to the Organization on the availability and location of any reception facilities for the environmentally safe disposal of sediments. In addition, the BWM Convention gives detailed requirements for sediment management for vessels. This means that vessels shall remove and dispose sediments from ballast tanks according to their Ballast Water Management Plans in which detailed procedures for the disposal of sediments on shore shall be provided. With this, appropriate sediment collection and disposal in shipyards and ports becomes now a new challenge. We have conducted studies on the volumes and content of sediment, and will describe how to best approach this issue. In addition, we present the current sediment management situation in Turkey as a case study of a country with a larger number of dockyards located along three different seas.