Sue Do grep -l 'ballast' Michigan/*.law | xargs rm

Canada.com recently posted this report about a lawsuit brought by a group of shipping industry stakeholders from Canada, Barbados and the USA against the state of Michigan. The coalition, made up of shipping companies, shipping associations and a dock company, are claiming that the recently enacted Michigan Ballast Water Act is unconstitutional. They also say that the law places an undue burden on the industry and provides little benefit to the Great Lakes.

I did not read all of the background material from the lawsuit, but it looks like this stems from a state law that went into effect on January 1, 2007, stating that all ships entering a port in Michigan that wish to discharge ballast water must apply for a permit (and pay a fee), treat the ballast water in an approved manner, and report on such treatment. The coalition is upset that a state is trying to do the regulating, saying that it would be more appropriately done at the federal level (How long should Michigan be willing to wait for that to happen? Better yet, why not do it at an international level?).

Interested readers may want to check out this page from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which provides links to several relevant documents. Also, this article from the Muskegon Chronicle names some names from the coalition.