Cruise ships, floating vacations
laden with gourmet food and dazzling entertainment, transport
some 10 million passengers to exotic islands and ports worldwide
every year. And generate millions of gallons of waste water daily.
The cruise industry's environmental performance between 1993 and
1998 was summed up in a recent report from the General Accounting
Office, which found that cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed
cases of illegal discharges of oil, garbage and hazardous wastes
into US waters and had paid more than $30 million in fines. The
GAO though, also found that 72 percent of the pollution incidents
were caused by accident.
According to a study done by the Cape Decision International Services
in Alaska, an average cruise ship produces between 158,000 and
272,000 gallons of graywater and treated blackwater a day. The
largest cruise ships, of the 223 worldwide, are capable of carrying
5,000 people and can generate about 2 million gallons of waste
water every week, Bluewater Network reported.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's illustration of the proper
disposal/retaining techniques for managing graywater under their
Save the Waves program(www.rccl.com).
Bluewater Network is a national environmental organization which
sent a report, Cruising for Trouble: Stemming the Tide of Cruise
Ship Pollution, along with a petition on behalf of 58 other
organizations to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This
petition asked the EPA to "identify and take regulatory action
on measures to address pollution by cruise ships."
Cruise ships produce enormous volumes of completely unregulated
or inadequately regulated waste, Bluewater charged. "It is
time for the EPA to crack down on these floating cities that are
having a severe impact of the environment," executive director
Russell Long said.
"The cruise industry is constantly looking for new ways to
improve its environmental performance," Vice President of
the International Council of Cruise Lines, Angela Plott, said.
Several million dollars spent on recycling efforts have introduced
or improved grinders and incinerators which are designed to break
down food waste, used materials and wastewater, Plott said.
A treatment system used on all the vessels for blackwater, the
waste from toilets, urinals and medical facility sinks, are called
marine sanitation devices. MSDs are supposed to function like
a sewage plant to reduce the contamination of the waste. Long
said that no one ever tested them until last summer, and the number
of pathogens found in the blackwater exceeded expectations. "MSDs
don't work," Long said. These malfunctioning machines are
considered one of the two critical loopholes of cruise ship regulation,
according to Bluewater Network.
The contaminants in raw sewage are harmful to sea life, Bluewater
Network reported. When discharged untreated or ill-treated, the
pathogens scar coral and can seep into the tissues of shellfish,
posing a public heath risk if these are harvested and ingested.
"We wouldn't have the marine sanitation devices if they didn't
work," Michael Sheehan, manager of corporate communications
at Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, said. Sheehan affirmed the MSDs
are all certified by the US Coast Guard which inspects them and
consults with the EPA.
Plott concurred with Sheehan and said MSDs are inspected four
times a year by the Coast Guard, independent of the ICCL.
A GAO marine pollution report stated; "During three of the
four inspections they[the Coast Guard] perform on each cruise
ship each year, they limit pollution prevention checks primarily
to inspections of documents. The Coast Guard inspectors we interviewed
who conduct cruise ship inspections said they rarely have time
to closely examine pollution prevention equipment."
Internationally, marine sanitation devices must receive an International
Maritime Organization Certificate of Type Test to be used, as
stated in a 1999 U.S Coast Guard publication. This certification
shows the waste management system complies with the IMOs resolutions.
A MSD will be issued a letter of certification if it is tested
in a USCG accepted laboratory and adheres to USCG standards.
All U.S. vessels operating within U.S. waters, which most luxury
cruise liners are, must have a certified MSD. Most cruise ships
are fitted with type II MSDs, which reduce the fecal coliform
(bacteria found in warm-blooded animal's intestines) bacterial
count below 200 parts per 100 milliliters with floating solids
less than 150 milligrams per liter. These primary regulations
came into effect by the U.S. Coast Guard's federal regulations
two decades ago.
The waste management systems on Royal Caribbean ships are presently
checked in a number of ways, Sheehan said. They use their own
personnel, environmental officers stationed on ships, other engineers,
the Coast Guard, as well as a private auditing firm to inspect
them.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's illustration of their resource
flow on their ships-part of their Save the Waves program(www.rccl.com).
"We are concerned as anyone about the proper functioning
of environmental systems," Sheehan said. "We have always
been environmentally sensitive, which is why we installed environmental
officers onboard our ships and external audits...the best is a
blend of self regulation and government agency regulations."
The regulations in place by the government are themselves a complaint
for environmentalists. The second great loophole in pollution
regulation Bluewater Network criticizes is the lack of federal
limitations on the disposal of graywater.
The U.S. Clean Water Act defines graywater as galley, bath and
shower water, while the International Maritime Organization also
includes laundry, dishwashers and washbasin drains. Both international
and U.S. laws recognize the water from pools and spas, condensate
from the air conditioning systems and runoff from deck washing
as graywater. U.S. and International law allows cruise ships to
dump graywater anywhere, even while in port if they wanted, Long
said. "Graywater has the potential to be a serious problem."
This wastewater can be harmful to the environment because of high
amounts of oxygen-demanding substances and nutrients that compose
it, Bluewater Network reported.
Sheehan said whether or not environmental considerations will
be fully and thoroughly incorporated is a question of motivation
by the individual cruise lines. Royal Caribbean, a leading cruise
line with a fleet of 15 ships, has new policies for the discharge
of graywater. It is treated and either landed or dumped outside
12 miles off shore, he said. "It is best to discharge at
a distance...to do what is best to be environmentally sound."
This and other policies have been developed by Royal Caribbean
under the Save the Waves program. This program, developed
in 1992, is designed to clearly explain how they are trying to
reduce the creation or generation of waste material, recycle as
much as possible, and guarantee proper disposal of remaining waste,
Sheehan said.
The cruise industry is pledging to voluntarily not dump graywater
near shore, Long acknowledges, but US flag ships operate mostly
within US waters and don't have holding tanks. "They [the
cruise industry] swear to god they won't dump graywater, but there's
no evidence to prove what they say," Long said. Mandatory
regulations the cruise lines support and abide by need to form
to ensure they are making progress.
The ICCL is trying to modify guidelines and finalize the language
of mandatory standards for recycling and waste management, said
Plott. "The industry is prepared to take the next step to
higher levels with new technology," Plott said.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line was charged $18 million, the GAO reported,
when they pled guilty to 21 counts of illegally discharging contaminated
bilge waste on nine of their ships, and making false material
statements to the Coast Guard.
According to GAO reports, in 1993 a Royal Caribbean ship, the
Nordic Empress, was fitted with a bypass pipe which circumvented
an oily water separator, allowing employees to discharge bilge
waste into the oceans and bays without first processing it.
Incidents like that were not fleet wide, but were done by small
groups of people on individual ships, Sheehan said. "Incidents
in the 1999 prosecution occurred in the early to mid nineties...we
have come a long time and way beyond those experiences."
Records are different now, with wider, daily and weekly reports,
he said.
Florescent light bulbs and batteries are landed, brought to shore
and properly discarded, Sheehan said. There are separate containers
on board the RCCL ships and the crew separates the trash bag by
bag. The food was is recovered, grouped and incinerated to be
used as energy on board.
The RCCL fleet is making progress. There have been no significant
pollution incident since the charges in 1999, Sheehan said.
Bluewater Network believes the cruise industry is making progress
but not as rapidly or as strong as it could. "It is no where
near where it should be in regulating pollution," Long said.
"The EPA has got to develop some realistic regulations that
prevent the cruise industry from using our oceans as pollution
dumping ground."
The EPA will soon be releasing a report for public comment that
identifies their view on the current state of environmental management
on cruise ships. This report will illustrate the influence the
agency should have on the industry and what regulations to impose.
By 2003, GAO reported, cruise ship companies intend to add 33
new and possibly bigger ships to the North American market, which
will increase passenger capacity by about 35 percent from 1998.