Coastal Services Center

Cruise ships are riding a wave of popularity that may mean more ports will be receiving these ocean-going cities. While massive passenger-carrying vessels promise communities handsome economic benefits, they also bring along enormous amounts of relatively unregulated wastewater that has coastal managers in Alaska taking a close look at the industry.

"It's a growing concern," says Bob King, press secretary for Alaska Office of the Governor. "The State of Alaska really welcomes visitors and welcomes the cruise ship industry itself, but like other industries that operate in the state, they have to operate responsibly, and that involves monitoring, enforcement, and appropriate regulations. This is the course that we are taking."

Concerns about the environmental impacts of cruise ships were aroused in 1999 when one company admitted that pollution control devices on a number of its ships were deliberately bypassed and records were falsified over a period of years. Concerns turned to alarm in Alaska last summer when testing of wastewater discharges found that only 1 sample out of 80 taken from cruise ships met federal and state standards for suspended solids and fecal coliform. King notes that some of the samples contained more than 50,000 times the bacteria federal law allows in treated sewage.

"This was clearly unacceptable," King says. "Alaska has seen dramatic growth in the industry over the past several years, and it's not really been regulated up until this point. It was always looked at as a green industry that didn't impact the resources."

Stan Deno, director of Technical Operations for the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL), says the industry has taken actions to prevent future illegal marine discharges, and that as a whole, cruise ships comply with or go beyond pollution laws. He notes that before discharge, sewage is treated, oil is removed from bilge water, and hazardous substances are properly disposed of on land.

"We don't condone what happened, but would like to focus more on what we're doing now," Deno says. "The cruise industry is committed to being good environmental citizens and stewards."

While there seems to be a general consensus among federal and state regulators—and even some environmental activists—that the industry has indeed stepped up its waste management efforts, questions about potential environmental impacts remain. To address these issues in Alaska, the state has formed a multi-interest task force and the governor has proposed state legislation. Federal cruise ship legislation was passed for the state last year.

The Profit of Leisure

Globally, the cruise industry is growing at a faster rate than any other segment of the travel industry. A study commissioned by the ICCL shows that the total economic impact of the cruise lines, their passengers, and their U.S. suppliers jumped from $11.6 billion in 1997 to $15.5 billion in 1999.

While Florida has the highest number of cruise ships embarking from U.S. ports, the industry's impact on destination states like Alaska may be greater. King notes that on any given day there are 45,000 passengers and crew aboard cruise ships in Southeast Alaska—a floating population equivalent to the third largest community in the state.

A study on the economic impact of the industry in Southeast Alaska reports that in 1999, cruise lines, passengers, and crew are estimated to have spent $181 million and generated the equivalent of 1,565 year-round jobs in just the four communities of Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Haines. It also notes that the number of cruise passengers visiting the region grew from 235,000 in 1990 to 596,000 in 1999—an increase of 154 percent.

The Waste of Recreation

As the public's demand for cruise vacations has increased, so has the size of the ships. Today's cruise vessels commonly carry 3,000 passengers and crew, with new ships being designed for 4,000 to 5,000 people. Like small cities, waste is being generated 24 hours a day.

A typical cruise ship on a weeklong voyage generates approximately 50 tons of garbage, 210,000 gallons of sewage, and 1 million gallons of gray water, which is water from showers, sinks, and kitchen and laundry drains, as well as various amounts of hazardous waste from dry-cleaning, photo processing, hair salons, and other operations aboard the ship, says Kira Schmidt, campaign director of the Bluewater Network. Air pollution generated by cruise vessels while in port also is a concern.

Because the ships move, Deno says, the management of wastes is more complicated than for land-based activities "as the facilities and laws change with the location of the ship." As a result, facilities on the ships and management practices must be designed to take into account environmental laws and regulations around the world.

Deno says the ICCL is leading industry efforts to improve its environmental performance by establishing mandatory environmental standards for its members, which consist of the 16 largest passenger cruise lines. These policies cover waste minimization, waste reuse and recycling, and waste management.

But environmental groups say these measures don't go far enough. "Although voluntary efforts by the cruise industry to clean up its act are steps in the right direction, they are insufficient to ensure that cruise ship pollution of the marine environment will abate," Schmidt says. "It is clear that regulatory measures are needed to obligate the industry to closely monitor and control the tremendous volume of waste generated by their enormous ships."

Reviewing the Regulations

Environmental laws impacting the industry in the U.S. were mostly written in the 1970s, when cruise ships were not considered a serious threat to the environment, says Craig Vogt, deputy director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Oceans and Coastal Protection Division. The Coast Guard is responsible for making sure the MSDs for sewage are installed, but Vogt notes, "more effort is needed to ensure that they are functioning properly." There are no federal standards for gray water discharges.

In 1999, a leading cruise ship company pled guilty to 21 felony violations of federal law, including seven in Alaska, and agreed to pay a record $18 million fine. The company admitted polluting repeatedly and lying to the Coast Guard about it. Several other cruise ship companies also have received substantial criminal penalties in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for similar incidents, notes a report by the U.S. Government Accounting Office.

Up until that point, King says, the issue of cruise ship discharges was never a concern for the state. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation convened a steering committee made up of state, federal, and industry representatives and citizen activists to review the cruise industry's waste management practices. The wastewater testing was done as part of this Alaska Cruise Ship Initiative. Even the industry, which picked up the costs of monitoring and testing, was surprised by what the testing found.

"To a great degree it was a big surprise to us, too," Deno says. "What we learned is that you can't just turn on a system and walk away and assume it works. . . The ships in our fleet have gone through a review of marine sanitation devices, and we've talked to the manufacturers to see how we can keep them operating properly. We're on track for keeping that problem in line."

In the wake of the tests, the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting cruise ships from discharging treated sewage within a mile of any Alaskan port. It also allows the state to set up interim purity standards for gray water.

Alaska Governor Tony Knowles has proposed state legislation that would give the state oversight of the industry in Alaska, including establishing state monitoring of cruise ship discharges using a $1 per passenger user fee to pay for the initiative. The legislation, which was not passed this legislative session, would make "cruise ships comply with the same standards for clean water that the state demands of our communities, and of the state's own marine highway ferries," King says.

Other states are moving to address the cruise industry as well, and the Coastal States Organization (CSO) is reviewing the need for national legislation, similar to the initiative passed for Alaska. "What we see CSO doing is pulling all the individual efforts together to fit a national agenda," says John Lopez, CSO legislative and policy analyst. "Coastal states have a interest in the cruise ship industry, and the states feel that economic and environmental concerns are not mutually exclusive."

At the request of the Bluewater Network and 53 other environmental organizations, the EPA is reviewing the industry to assess if there are better ways to monitor and regulate the cruise ships; it plans to distribute a report this summer. Vogt notes, "The standards developed in 1977 may no longer be appropriate in light of available technologies."

"Nobody put a bottle at the end of a pipe before," King says. "Alaska has a lot to offer—clear water, fishing opportunities, and spectacular country. We want to preserve the waters where these vessels operate so visitors years from now can continue to enjoy them."

For more information on the Alaska Cruise Ship Initiative, point your browser to www.gov.state.ak.us. You may also contact Bob King at (907) 465-3500 or bob_king@gov.state.ak.us. For more information about the EPA's cruise industry review, point your browser to www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/cruise_ships. For more information on the cruise industry, point your browser to www.iccl.org.