Tom Meersman

MASSENA, N.Y. -- Coast Guard Petty Officer Ward Ordway boarded a foreign ship in the St. Lawrence Seaway, ready to look into its dark, dank bowels for stowaways. Not human troublemakers, but aquatic creatures that could escape the murky depths of ballast water tanks and invade the Great Lakes.

Ordway and an assistant tested the stored water to make sure it was salty enough to kill any pests carried from foreign ports. Tests like this are the U.S. government's main bulwark against alien species ......
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