Sludge Watch ==> Friends of the Earth Sue the EPA over cruise ship sewage dumping

[Maureen Reilly]

May 9, 2007 10:41 p.m. PT

Environmental group sues EPA over cruise ship pollution
Agency accused of failing to assess, regulate problem
By KRISTEN MILLARES BOLT
P-I REPORTER

Friends of the Earth, a non-profit network of more than 1 million members, 
has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
alleging it failed to respond to a petition filed seven years ago asking it 
to assess and regulate cruise ship pollution.

"We have a new Congress who might be more receptive to action, it is the 
beginning of the cruise season in North America and the expansion of the 
cruise industry continues to 12 million passengers this year," said Teri 
Shore, the clean vessels campaign director in the San Francisco office of 
Friends of the Earth. "For all these reasons, it seemed like a good time: It 
is better late than never."

Shore said the influence of the Bush administration caused the EPA -- after 
beginning to study the matter seriously in 2000 -- to abandon its efforts to 
analyze and regulate pollution from the growing cruise industry.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., chronicles a 
history of non-response and unfulfilled assurances to comply with the 
petition, filed in 2000.

The lawsuit describes promises made by the EPA in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 
2006 to respond to the petition with a report on cruise ship waste streams 
that it was "actively working" on. The first target date for the report's 
release was Oct. 1, 2000.

Since then, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans 
Commission have asked for a national plan to regulate cruise ship dumping of 
the sewage produced during voyages, but none has been forthcoming.

The EPA declined to comment on the lawsuit or its history of work on the 
cruise pollution issue.

Cruise Lines International Association Vice President Michael Crye said that 
Friends of the Earth glosses over recent actions by the EPA to address the 
matter and that his industry's cooperation with the EPA's process continues.

"They have been actively involved in a regulatory project over the past 
years and are still actively pursuing the regulatory project evaluating the 
wastewater systems and whether there is any need to do more," Crye said.

While Alaska, California, Maine and Hawaii have passed more stringent state 
laws, Washington has relied on a voluntary agreement between the Port of 
Seattle, the state Department of Ecology and the Northwest CruiseShip 
Association to prohibit its members from discharging untreated sewage into 
Puget Sound.

The Port of Seattle, King County and the state are studying whether it would 
be environmentally beneficial to ask cruise lines to offload their 
wastewater to be treated ashore, focusing in particular on the sewage sludge 
left over from the ships' treatment processes. The sludge can be dumped 12 
miles out to sea.

The average Alaska-bound cruise ship generates about 28,000 gallons of 
sewage sludge during the seven-day jaunt from Seattle, according to port 
staff. From May to September this year, 150 cruises are bound for Alaska 
from the Port of Seattle.

They will generate about 4.2 million gallons of sewage sludge.

In response to environmental concerns in ports of call such as Seattle, the 
cruise lines have begun deploying more advanced sewage-treatment systems on 
their vessels, systems they can use to strain some of the solid material 
from the raw sewage. Once the solids are separated, the rest is treated and 
can be discharged into the water within one nautical mile of the port berth 
while the ship is traveling at six knots.

Crye said that treated sewage -- "literally water that you can drink without 
harmful effects" -- does not pose an environmental risk to the waters in 
which it is discharged. Environmentalists counter that the hormones and 
antibiotics found in such waste are disruptive to marine life.

"The EPA did a very significant effort in 2004 in sampling discharges from 
cruise ships and evaluating capability of advanced wastewater purification 
systems to determine if there was a need for additional regulation, 
particularly in Alaska, and whether the legislation in place was sufficient 
or not," Crye said.

The cruise industry took the EPA's 2004 data, compared it to water quality 
standards for municipal wastewater treatment systems, and found that the 
quality of treated sewage discharges from cruise ships equipped with the 
advanced treatment systems was "far beyond" that from most land-based 
wastewater plants.

P-I reporter Kristen Millares Bolt can be reached at 206-448-8142 or 
kristenbolt at seattlepi.com.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/315059_cruise10.html