Cruise Ship Blues: The Underside of the Cruise Ship Industry (17 page)

•    Annex IV, not yet in force, includes regulations for the prevention of pollution by sewage from ships. It needs ratification by 15 states constituting 50 percent of world tonnage; to date it has been ratified by 75 states constituting 43 percent of world tonnage.

•    Annex V, which took effect in 1989, includes regulations for the prevention of pollution by garbage from ships. The annex specifies the Caribbean as a “special area” (a region with stricter regulations than other areas of the ocean); however, that clause will not take effect until onshore garbage disposal facilities are fully available.
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INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PREVENTION OF POLLUTION FROM SHIPS (MARPOL)

Annex IV: Regulations for the Prevention of Pollution by

Sewage from Ships

Regulation 8: Discharge of Sewage

(1) [T]he discharge of sewage into the sea is prohibited, except when:

(a) the ship is discharging comminuted and disinfected sewage ... at a distance of more than four nautical miles from the nearest land, or sewage which is not comminuted or disinfected at a distance of more than 12 nautical miles from the nearest land..

[Note that there is no regulation of graywater; in most cases it can be released anywhere.]

Annex V: Regulations for the Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships

Regulation 3: Disposal of Garbage outside Special Areas

(a)    The disposal into the sea of all plastics, including but not limited to synthetic ropes, synthetic fishing nets and plastic garbage bags is prohibited;

(b)    The disposal into the sea of the following garbage shall be made as far as practical from the nearest land but in any case is prohibited if the distance from the nearest land is less than:

i.    25 nautical miles for dunnage [material placed between

cargo to prevent shifting], lining, and packing material which will float;

ii.    12 nautical miles for food wastes and all other garbage including paper products, rags, glass, metal, bottles, crockery, and similar refuse.

(c)    Disposal into the sea of garbage specified in subparagraph (b) (ii) of this regulation may be permitted when it is passed through a comminuter or grinder and made as far as practical from the nearest land but in any case is prohibited if the distance from the nearest land is less than three nautical miles. Such comminuted or ground garbage shall be capable of passing through a screen with openings no greater than 25 mm.
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Beyond 12 miles of a coastline there is very little, other than plastic and oil, that cannot legally be dumped at sea. Even within 3 or 4 miles of the coast, much can be disposed of overboard, so long as it has been ground up to fit through a one-inch screen.

Despite the shortcoming of international regulations, most of us living in North America assume that federal and local laws protect the coastal environment. A report prepared in March 2000 by the Bluewater Network’s Cruise Ship Campaign suggests this is not the case.
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The fact is that American law has many loopholes and gaps related to discharges from cruise ships. Many types of discharges from cruise ships are exempt from key regulations

under the US Clean Water Act.

For example, the Clean Water Act makes it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into American waters unless a permit is obtained under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), but cruise ships are exempt. The act specifically provides that discharges of sewage from vessels, effluent from properly functioning marine engines, laundry, shower, and galley sink wastes (gray-water), or any other discharge “incidental to the normal operation of the vessel” are exempt from the requirement to obtain NPDES permits. Even though the EPA has found that graywater has the potential to cause harmful environmental effects, the Clean Water Act permits it to be legally dumped anywhere except the Great Lakes and certain parts of Alaska’s Inside Passage.

THE QUESTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

With as many as 25 ships sailing the Inside Passage at any point in time, and with an average of 2,000 passengers per ship, on a given day the area can hold 50,000 people producing 5 million gallons of wastewater, including 500,000 gallons of sewage. In addition, those 50,000 people would produce 27.5 tons of food waste and 55 tons of glass and tin. And all of this can be legally disposed of at sea.

Two issues exist. One, there is an issue of principle: quite simply, that cruise ships should not be permitted to release environmentally harmful discharges into coastal waters. The risks associated with each type of waste being released must be considered.
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And two, there is the issue of sheer volume. Communities along the Inside Passage in British Columbia and Alaska have a huge amount of pollution introduced into their coastal waters and into the food chain.

A cruise ship produces various types of waste.
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The nature of each type of waste and the laws that apply are worth mentioning. While I will focus on American laws and regulations, in almost every case these laws are as strict as or stricter than Canadian laws and regulations. The main exception is that, as of January 1, 2001, Canadian law prohibits the discharge of sewage in ten marine sites within the Strait of Georgia, and it also prohibits disposal of garbage in the Inside Passage within Canadian waters.
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Sewage

One of the more troubling pollutants produced by a cruise ship is sewage. It contributes to the degradation of the marine environment by introducing disease-causing microorganisms and excessive nutrients. Shellfish and other filter feeders may pick up sewage released in the vicinity of shellfish beds. Pathogens can become concentrated in their tissues, making them unsafe for human consumption. Sewage-borne pathogens are also harmful to corals. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous, also found in sewage, promote excessive algal growth which in turn consumes oxygen in the water and kills fish.

Although sewage is defined as a pollutant under the Clean Water

Act, sewage from cruise ships is exempt. The Clean Water Act prohibits generally the dumping of untreated or inadequately treated sewage within three miles of shore. But beyond that, it’s legal for a cruise ship to empty its toilets into the sea.

Most cruise ships attempt to deal with the problem of sewage through the use of a “marine sanitation device” — an onboard sewage treatment plant. If operating properly, sewage treated by a marine sanitation device will not exceed a fecal coliform count of 200 per 100 milliliters of water, nor contain suspended solids greater than 150 milligrams per liter of water. Monitoring done by the State of Alaska during the summer of 2000, however, indicated actual rates of fecal coliform and suspended solids as much as

100,000 times greater than allowed.

While marine sanitation devices are intermittently inspected by the Coast Guard to ensure they work properly, the cruise ship is not held to the same standards as industries and municipalities that discharge treated sewage into state waters. The latter are required to sample, monitor, and report on levels of pollutants and other parameters of effluents discharged. Cruise ships have no such requirements.

Graywater

Detergents, cleaners, oil and grease, metals, pesticides, medical and dental waste — all of this can be found in graywater. It includes whatever passengers put down their drains, any runoff from food preparation (including the washing of produce, which may possess pesticide or other chemical residue), the laundry, the washing of dishes and utensils, and anything else that goes down the drain. Graywater has the potential to cause adverse environmental effects, according to a study of discharges from vessels of the US Armed Forces.
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Until recently the Great Lakes was the only area with explicit regulations controlling the release of graywater in American or Canadian waters. US federal legislation passed in December 2000 extended protection to specific coastal areas of Alaska’s Inside Passage.
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However, even though the American delegation to the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) suggested in December 1999 that graywater may contain contaminants which pose greater threats than sewage discharges, and recommended that some form of regulation be put into place, the government has taken no action beyond the limited protection within a small area of Alaska’s Inside Passage.

Hazardous Wastes

Until the Royal Caribbean legal cases proved otherwise, most people would have assumed that hazardous wastes would not be dumped into the ocean. Now we know that not only do cruise ships produce hazardous wastes, they might very well release them into the ocean. That is why the ICCL guidelines include prohibitions against such things as:

•    dry-cleaning sludge (which contains perchloroethylene, known to cause cancer and birth defects in humans, and in small amounts to be toxic to aquatic animals)

•    waste from photo processing and X-ray development (which contains silver, a toxic waste)

•    paint waste and dirty solvents (which contain toluene, xylene, benzene, turpentine, methyl ethyl ketone, to name a few)

•    print shop wastes (which contains hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, and heavy metals)

•    fluorescent light bulbs (which contain mercury)

•    batteries (which contain lead, corrosives, and cadmium).

That a cruise line would dump these chemicals into the ocean is one thing. That there are no clear regulations applying to the management and disposal of these wastes is even more frightening.

There are two basic problems with existing regulations. First, the EPA holds the view that regulations on disposal of hazardous waste apply to cruise ships when the waste has been landed on shore, but do not apply to ships at sea, even when a ship is in American waters.

Second, there is a question as to which regulations apply to cruise ships. Is a cruise ship a “small quantity generator” — producing less than 2,200 pounds of hazardous waste per month — or a “large quantity generator” — producing more than that amount? A small quantity generator is subject to less stringent record keeping and reporting than a large quantity generator. In

ACCORDING TO OUR LOGS ...

Even with international guidelines and the ICCL's commitment, it appears that dangerous chemicals are still being released. In October 2001 I took a transatlantic cruise aboard the
Seabourn Goddess I.
One day, midway through the crossing, passengers watched as a fluorescent green stream of liquid was twice released from the back of the ship. Many took pictures, and the matter was a topic of much discussion. A number of passengers asked the chief engineer about the emission. He explained that it was a chemical used to detect leaks and that it was legal to release it at sea. However, his comments contradicted the MARPOL log on the bridge that listed the emission as food waste, and were inconsistent with an explanation given by an officer who said the chemicals should have been put into a holding tank until they reached shore.