In August 2014, the California State Lands Commission ("CSL") issued the attached letter to clarify its interpretation of existing ballast water requirements under the California's Marine Invasive Species Act ("MISA"). In its letter, California recognizes that in certain limited circumstances under federal law a vessel may not be required to deviate or incur delay in order to conduct a ballast water exchange. However, CSL explains that MISA does not provide for any exemption based on deviation or voyage delay.
CSL has also updated its map to more correctly depict the 200 nm boundary for the US West Coast, including those waters extending south of California.
On 4th October, 2016, the US Coast Guard issued a notice on its Coast Guard Maritime Commons Blog in which it provided a recap of a presentation delivered by Lt. Cmdr. Jason Kling, of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center, at the 2016 BWMTech Conference in Miami 26th-28th September.
The California State Lands Commission has issued an update regarding Assembly Bill (AB) 912 being signed into law. The AB will bring in the following changes to the Marine Invasive Species Act as from 1st January 2020:
(SLC) issued a notice stating that, effective 1st April, the fee paid by a vessel with a qualifying voyage arrival at a California port will increase from $850 to $1,000.
