Ships' ballast water - one new alien species enters the Med every nine days

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 18:57

And what about the Diseases taken to other countries such as Captain Blythe did and Columbus did to the Red Indians, and the Rabbit and Sheep infestation in Australia, and the Palm Beetle in Malta, and AIDS, and the Black death plagues. Is not Tourism and Illegal immigrants a case of alien species entering Malta and the Morals and new ethics and effects of marriage and religion. Where did Paceville come from, surely the Phoenicians, the Arabs, the Aragons, the knoghts, the British, all brought about aliens with which we had to learn to live. Incidentally a tourist with a good family background went to Paceville and he was rather surprised at his findings. He thought that Paceville was a place for imported child prostitutes, and when they told him that it was not , he just could not believe it. So young , so free, such drinking, such clothes. Incidentally imported clothes, my wife says is for small sized frames as Chinese and Korean people. so even clothes are becoming aliens to the normal sized Maltese female frame. Since the sea and the atmosphere have no boundaries , all this will proceed, till evolution settles it all.

r ferriggi

Jul 2nd 2010, 15:44

HAve we only realised NOW about this fenomenon??

and,,, frankly.......... wat can be done about it??

this is exactly like the oil/hydrocarbon etc damage to the environment. what can you do about it?? wen the world economy depends on it..... is ADDICTED to it??

zilch.

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 15:35

During the September 9/11 era I was approached by a foreign group to inform them about the type of fuel Malta needs and the location of the primary Maltese fuel storage Depots. Since I was not born yesterday, I pretended that I did not know such locations except the Liquid gas depot at Birzebbugia. This group of foreigners were discussing that it would really hurt a particular nation if its fleet and passenger cruise liners were somehow affected. In Indonesia, a USANaval ship was attacked, but discussions alsocovered the study of the quays in Malta where Alien Substance would be stored in eroded caves under the surface of the water beside quays berthing passenger liners. Before the Waterfront at Valletta was rebuilt as it is , local divers were asked to study and locate theeroded caves in quays where large passenger cruiseliners berthed.
It was interesting that after the Indonesian incident, AmericanSeacraft in theGrandHarbour was always surrounder by floating buoys where people had to stay at a distance. Eroded caves under our quays were being studied and scrutinised for some purpose. Maltese trusted divers said there were no suitable caves under our concrete quays.There were plenty eroded patches of concrete.!

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 15:01

Aliens in workshop machinery and transport vehicles. The workshops and transport vehicles which I refered to below,were the British Army workshops at St Andrews If I remember correctly. (REME) if my memory does not fail me. Apparently there are very clever Maltese people walking around in silence and before the British left Malta, tthe Maltese person in charge of these workshops had noticed suspicious movement by some officers, that could hurt his beloved machines which he had cared so much for his whole life.
Without telling anybody he switched of the electricity mains by damaging the supply cables. This he did so that noone would switch on any of the machinery in the workshop, neither any of the transport vechicles under his responsibility. Slowly on his own, he checked the oil baths in every machine and the lubrication oil in the engines and gearboxes and to his surprise he foundVALVE GRINDING PASTE AND GRIT IN EVERY ONE OF HIS MACHINES including lathes, millling machines,drillling and other oiled machinery with bearings.
Slowly he changes all the oil, ridding of unwanted Alien Grit in every machine and vehicle , and did not repair the supply cable till the BritishOfficers had gone.

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 12:38

Helpfull Aliens to some, but not to others. During the Royal Airforce era, there were many OFFICERS in authority who thought that they could LEAD and MANAGE using a HARD HAND.
One officers cut down on the preventive mentainance schedules to the detriment of the paid overtime of the Maltese clever workers. Without mainenace the runnway lights used to go off suddenly and so the mainenance team was quickly called to fix the faults. Years went by as this officer insisted not to do any preventive mentainance but only emergency repairs. The emergency repairs became frequent enough for the Maltese working to earn some additional finances, all were happy.
It happened that before the British left I knew that they had put many IRON FILINGS in workshop machines and transport vehicles.
What the British did not know was that the Maltese had put a timer unit in the soil at Luqa Airport and this timer relay contactor was timed to switch off the runnway at 1,2,3,4,5,oclock in the morning and so the "Emergency repairs " were conveniently arranged at the right right frequency.THeAirforce sabotage before they left was for long counteracted by clever Maltese buggers. Poor British Officers

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 11:51

In Engineering "Unwanted aliens are UNWANTED". Once while mounting a powerstation steam turbine a friend of mine accidentally dropped a NUT in between the turbine blades. Instead of keeping his mouth shut, he went to the supervisor and apologised for this action. The nut was recovered and the apprentice was given an award for his integrity.
In fast fighter aircraft, the cockpit is held down with explosive bolts so that when ejection at fast speed the cockpit canopy hold down bolts go first , then the Martin Baker Ejection seat with the pilot goes second, for obvious reason. Once a stupid airframe fitter dropped a metalllic object which lay dormant till the plane flew and when flying inverted the Alien Metalic object made its way to firing the Martin Baker pilot's seat without the transparent cockpit canopy being first released. The poor pilot had no chance. People working on aircraft must never leave unwanted aliens when mentaining aircraft, of any type.

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 11:12

During the Royal Airforce stay in Malta , one of the officers was not so kind to some Maltese Airframe fitters and one day he found htat his 6 cylinder car gave the strangest and largest backfire he ever knew which almost split it in half. He almost scraped it.
Again " Aliens in cars can do this" what had happened was that one of the boys was so fed up with the situation that he got a gas cannister emptied it in the exhaust system and sealed the exhaust with a couple of potatoes and a few apples. With a 6 cylinder engine one of the exhaust valves is always open. hence the gas went though all the way to the pertinent areas fillling the exhaust expanding camber and silencers with gas.
On start up the inevitable had to happen.

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 10:54

There are occassions when " Quantities of Alien substances" come through overland in trucks. Once a custom officer whose hobby was Internal Combustion engines noted that the Monster truck waiting at the customs which he knew had a beautiful 12 cylinder engine was not working so smoothly as he knew these engines well. He ordered for the truck to be investigated whereby it was found that one cylinder was missing a piston and connecting rod
and this was replaced by a cylindrical steel cannister, which no dog would smell out, except a keen engineer with sensitive ear for engineering MUSIC. Engineering contributed to many issues these days.
Once there was a young man who hid in the undercarriage hollow of a Jumbp Jet and through a Miracle managed to emigrate to his destination to be found frozen to death yet uncrushed by the retracting undercarriage. He must have knew the aircraft well

Pule' Carmel

Jul 2nd 2010, 10:30

On the outside of the ballast tanks, there are other "Aliens" brought in. Once a Knowledgable Captain, whose ship was cleaned and antifouled abroad noted that his ship would not reach the normal speed when clean. As he reached Malta he stayed outside the harbour and ordered a Local Trusted Diver to check the hull and a sort of very expected aliens in various forms were found in a steel box welded to the hull, the size of the steel box affected the speed of the hull , detected by the sensitive Master.

Jesmond Micallef

Jun 30th 2010, 11:53

The Bay of Birzebugia is the perfect example here !! My childhood snorkelling days there are just a living photographic memory in comparison to what one observes there today !!

I think that its not an easy problem to solve, filtering has possibilities but coupled with a radiation type of water treatment may present further possibilities of control. Such technology is used in sterilization. Indeed, a very good challenge, one which necessitates a global collective effort, no doubt.

victor rodenas

Jun 30th 2010, 10:58

Better late than never .Tankers have been emptying their ballast into the Med.Sea for at least 40 yrs. so......365 ..divided by 9 ..times ..40 = more or less = 1600 alien species in 40 yrs . I am sure that Maltese marine biologists knew about this long ago...................

Christian Sciberras

Jun 30th 2010, 10:35

Aliens! In Malta!!


On a more serious note, why can't proper filtering measures be taken?

Noel Tonna

Jun 30th 2010, 10:09

This is a very positive approach. We have recently got to know that small deadly jellyfish, originating from the Australian region have been found as far north as Britiain (Discovery Channel Program). Perhaps it is not as impossible as it seems for these deadly creatures to be discharged in a Maltese port! Then what? I would be very surprised if we had anything to combat such toxins, viruses and biological threats.