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Little company, big job, And, potentially, big bucks.
That's the story of Marine Environmental Partners, a Fort Lauderdale startup with four employees that hopes to solve one of the world's most pressing oceanographic problems.
If it succeeds, the firm's CEO, a naval engineer with a zest for improving the environment, estimates he could become the head of a $20 billion-a-year company.
The problem
Ocean-going passenger and cargo ships move an estimated 10 billion metric tons of ballast water around the world every year, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). After a ship has burned up the fuel in one of its fuel tanks, it fills the tank with sea water - so-called ballast water in order to keep a ship on an even keel.
As ships enter port, they often empty their tanks of ballast water so those tanks can be filled with new fuel.
If the freighters piled high with cargo boxes that steam in and out of South Florida ports every day couldn't use ballast water, "they'd tip over," said C.E. "Bud" Leffler, president and founder of Marine Environmental Partners (MEP).
The problem is that ballast water can contain bacteria and microbes, and the eggs and cysts of marine species. These foreign life forms invade U.S. waters and are costly to eradicate.
The IMO estimated last year that more than $1 billion had been spent since 1989 to try to contain just one sea borne pest. the European zebra mussel, in U.S. waters. The marine organization further reported "hundreds of examples...