VIA ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION

December 4, 2009 

Docket Management Facility 

U.S. Dep’t of Transportation 

West Bldg. Ground Floor 

Room W12-140 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. 

Washington, DC 20590 

 Re: Docket I.D. No.: USCG-2001-10486 

Dear Sir or Madam: 

 E.N. Bisso & Son, Inc. (“E.N. Bisso”) is a New Orleans based, family owned business with more 

than 100 years of service providing ship-assist using harbor tugs, offshore towing, and offering heavylift derrick services to a world-wide customer base of ocean-going vessels. The crews who operate our 

15 vessels have an unparalleled commitment to professional service focusing upon safety and 

environmental protection. Although some of our vessels provide services in the offshore market from 

time to time, all of our vessels operate primarily upon the Lower Mississippi River and usually within 

one Captain of the Port Zone. The company is actively committed to ensuring the safe, efficient, 

secure and environmentally sound operation of marine commerce on our waterways. 

 E.N. Bisso is a member of the American Waterways Operators and the Offshore Marine Service 

Association and adopts by reference their comments to the docket. 

 Responsible stewardship for protection of the marine environment must be balanced by practicality 

and expense as measured by a thorough cost/benefit analysis. Likewise, the Coast Guard’s effort to 

establish regulatory standards to minimize the effect of certain living organisms in ballast water should 

be driven by a meaningful cost/benefit analysis. It appears that in terms of small vessels such as our 

towing vessels, this was not done. There is no analysis, and hence no evidence, to the assertion that 

small vessels having only limited ballast water capacity or those that operate in limited areas but 

burdened with these proposed rules would provide measurably less probability for the introduction of 

invasive species. 

In our opinion, not one of the three proposed methods for complying with the proposed rule is 

necessary for towing vessels operating in limited local areas such as a single Captain of the Port 

(COTP) Zone as is presently the case in accord with 33 C.F.R. § 151.2035 and Navigation and 

Inspection Circular 07-04, Change 1. Moreover, the proposed regulations do not permit a common 

scenario, which is the use of municipal fresh water or commercially-treated water as ballast in a tank 

that is kept clean as if it was filled with potable water. Instead, such water must be treated as if it is 

infested with harmful living organisms requiring the use of a ballast water management system, 

E.N. BISSO & SON, INC. HARBOR TUGS – OFFSHORE TOWING – HEAVY LIFT DERRICK

Corporate Office: 3939 N. Causeway Blvd., Suite 401, Metairie, LA 70002 Tel: (504) 828-3296 Fax: (504) 831-6701 

Operations Office: Foot of Walnut St., New Orleans, LA 70118 Tel: (504) 861-3551 Fax: (504) 861-1403 
retaining it or performing a ballast water exchange more than 200 nautical miles from shore. This is 

unjustified. 

Equally problematic is the proposed Ballast Water Discharge Standards (BWDS) as outlined in 

the draft form of 33 C.F.R. § 151.2030. In our opinion, imposing a duty upon the master of a vessel to 

use a Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) in accordance with technical standards that are 

beyond the common comprehension of many mariners is misplaced. That the systems, which are 

Coast Guard/IMO type-approved, should confirm to these standards is not challenged. However, the 

master’s duty should be to keep the BWMS operational in conformance with these standards by 

ensuring that the system in compliance with the type-approval, which failure can be shown by an 

indicator panel or some other positive and simple means immediately obvious to the master. As 

written, the master could be subject to penalties of $27,500 per day for failure to conform to standards 

they may not be able to understand the meaning of without specialized bio-engineering training. 

In any event, there appears to be no existing ballast water management systems that will 

physically fit in the machinery spaces of many of our company’s towing vessels. The expense of such 

systems, assuming that the footprint can be physically accommodated, is prohibitive as measured 

against the overall value of our typical harbor tug. Thus, both simple economics and common sense 

militate against an install of a proposed BWMS. Instead, E.N. Bisso proposes that towing vessels 

engaged solely in domestic trade within a single COTP Zone be allowed to continue to operate under 

the present regulations. Such vessels have a de minimus ballast water capacity as compared to the 

vessels studied as part of the regulatory and economic impact studies that have capacities in excess of 

450,000 gallons. 

 

To that end, we offer the following suggested changes (in bold italics): 

§ 151.2015 (c) should be changed to read: 

A vessel that operates exclusively within one Captain of the Port (COTP) Zone is exempt from the 

requirements in §§ 151.2025, 151.2060, and 151.2070 of this subpart. 

§ 151.2015 Exemptions must add (d) to read: 

(d) any domestic towing vessel that has less than 100,000 gallons or less of ballast water capacity is 

exempt from the requirements of this subpart. 

§ 151.2025 Ballast Water Management Requirements must add (h) to read: 

(h) the use of commercially treated or municipal fresh water is permitted to be used as an 

environmentally sound alternative method of ballast water management. 

E. N Bisso appreciates the opportunity to comment. 

Sincerely yours, 

Michael F. Vitt 

General Counsel