This summer, a new kind of passenger might make an appearance on cruise ships in Alaska: rangers whose job is to make sure the vessels are not polluting the state's waters. The Alaskan state program, which includes plans to have as many as 60 monitors inspect ships' waste disposal methods, is one of the latest examples of state and federal efforts to keep billions of liters of cruise ship waste from affecting coastal waters.
Industry groups contend that cruise lines have substantially improved their waste disposal practices in recent years, making this program and other proposed laws unnecessary. In 2006, a panel of researchers organized by the nonprofit group Conservation International and the International Council of Cruise Lines, an industry group, said purified wastewater from ships in motion had negligible environmental impact.
Still, the growth in the cruise industry worries many experts. The number of passengers has grown from about 500,000 in 1970 to more than 12 million last year, according to the cruise lines group. From 2000 to the end of this year, 88 new ships will have been introduced. The vessels have grown larger as well. The Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas entered the fleet last June with the largest passenger capacity yet — 3,634 — double that of large ships a decade ago.
All this has raised concerns about the impact ship waste could have on coastal waters. "Imagine how you would feel about 1,000 families tossing garbage onto your front lawn for a week," a California state senator, Joe Simitian, said.
On average, a cruise ship generates 529,957 to 794,936 liters of sewage and 3.8 million liters of wastewater from sinks, showers, and laundries each week, the US Commission on Ocean Policy reported in 2004. Sewage carries germs that can contaminate shellfish beds and harm other life, while phosphates, nitrates, and other wastewater compounds can trigger huge growths of algae that cloud the water, reduce oxygen, smother corals, and kill fish.
A ship can also produce more than 95,000 liters of oily bilge water from engines and machinery a week, according to a 2000 Environmental Protection Agency report. Moreover, cruise ships' fuel often contains sulfur dioxide, and ships sometimes incinerate garbage, releasing dioxins and fine particles that can trigger respiratory ailments, according to Russell Long, founder of the environmental group Bluewater Network.
In 2001, the 21 members of the Cruise Lines International Association agreed not to release wastewater within 6.5km of shore. Still, violations happen.
In January, Celebrity Cruises paid US$100,000 to Washington state after its ship the Mercury violated an agreement and dumped more than 1.9 liters of untreated wastewater in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 2005, a few kilomters from commercial shellfish beds. In 2002, the Crystal Harmony released 136,000 liters of wastewater into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in California. Crystal Cruises disclosed it four months afterward.
"As a lifelong resident of the Monterey Bay area, I was angered by the actions of Crystal Cruises line when they dumped in our bay," said Representative Sam Farr, the area's congressman.
A Crystal Cruises spokeswoman, Mimi Weisband, said, "It was a terrible mistake, and contrary to our own policy to never discharge in any marine sanctuary." She noted that the discharge of the treated wastewater was legal, taking place 22.5km offshore, while maritime law allows the discharge of untreated wastewater 19km offshore.
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