Six-Year Strategic Plan: Ballast Water Management

The Washington State vessel-related ballast water management six-year strategic plan (Plan) was developed at the request of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) and their stakeholder Ballast Water Work Group (BWWG) through funding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Puget Sound Marine and Nearshore Grant Program and legislative proviso funding from the Washington State Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account. This Plan is the culmination of multiple years of effort. It builds off DFW experience and knowledge gained since the program was established in 2000, unmet BWWG recommendations from their 2007 report to the legislature, ballast water data collected between 2008-2015, a regulatory gap analysis report by Reynolds et al. 2016, and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) ballast data from 2015.