Neither the state nor federal government has figured out a defense, however. Neither has laws or rules aimed at keeping exotic organisms from riding a ship into Portland Harbor or another Maine port. In Maine, a state task force is studying the issue of invaders, but mostly focusing on freshwater exotics like millfoil, a plant fouling inland lakes. The only regulatory tool now available to state agencies is a broad prohibition against unlicensed discharges in coastal waters. Maine may not be in a position to make a difference anyway.
Invaders typically make land in one port and then spread gradually along the coast.
The green crab, for example, first came from Europe to the mid-Atlantic coast. Conservationists in California sued the U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency this month to force it to control the primary pathway of exotic organisms, the dumping of ballast water into bays, rivers and lakes. Inaction, they said, has caused billions of dollars in damage nationwide. Nowlin inspects incoming ships to help measure the risks of invaders. Ballast tanks are chambers in the hulls of ships used to take on seawater for weight and stability when a ship is emptied in a port.