Two Bills Introduced to Stop Cruise Ship Sewage Dumping

Cruise ships are often referred to as "floating cities" and for good reason. Large cruise ships can match small cities in terms of how much waste they produce. Last month, I blogged about the Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card, recently released by Friends of the Earth.

Take for example waste water alone: The average cruise ship produces over 1.2 million gallons of waste water every week. When combined with the number of cruise ships operating around the world today--230 of them--that equals hundreds of millions of gallons of waste water.

While they may be thought of as "cities," cruise ships are not subject to the same strict environmental regulations of land-based facilities in a city. So where does all of the dirty water go? Well, if the ships are three nautical miles away from the U.S. coast, they are lawfully able to dump untreated sewage into the ocean.

While the ocean is vast and expansive beyond the human imagination, cruise ship sewage dumping remains a threat to public health, marine ecosystems and fisheries and, in some cases, coastal tourism. And an EPA report at the end of 2008 revealed that the marine sanitation devices which ships are required to use in order to dump toilet waste three nautical miles from shore were not working.

Late last month, Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Congressman Sam Farr (D-California) both introduced bills into Congress to change the way ships dump their water. The bills are both titled The Clean Cruise Ship Act, introduced into the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively.

Both of the bills seek to prohibit the discharge of sewage, graywater, and oily bilge water within 12 nautical miles of the U.S. coast. Once beyond 12 miles, ships would need to treat their water to decrease pollution levels at least to those currently attained by wastewater treatment plants.

The acts also prohibit the dumping of sewage sludge, hazardous waste and incinerator ash in U.S. waters, and create inspection and sampling programs on ships as well as an onboard program to observe and ensure the enforcement of the acts' provisions.

To find out how you can help to end cruise ship pollution, click on the "Act" link below.