Pacific Spirit Marine Institute

Vinnie Isn’t the Only Thing Sleeping with the Fishes

Monday, May 21, 2007

On the Maiden Voyage of the PSMI blog our minds turned to the romance of ships upon the waters. Like most romance, when examined, there is a reality not always pretty.

It is simply astonishing to consider cruise lines dump more than 160,000 gallons of sewage into our oceans daily. Some 25,000 gallons are toilet sewage. If that doesn’t send chills down your spine while seated at your computer screen, try thinking about that when you are seated at your next seafood repast.

Currently cruise ships are allowed to dump untreated sewage from toilets into waters outside the 3-mile limit. An appetizing thought when one thinks about where commercial fishing takes place. Sewage and dinner are not two words I like to have swimming together in my mind.

Inside the 3-mile limit toilet sewage, if treated first by woefully inadequate marine sewage treatment devices, is still allowed. Good news? Not so fast. Untreated sewage from sinks and showers is still allowed inside the 3-mile limit. Can you say loufa or hock-a-loogey?

Cruising is a wonderful experience. Mankind atop the waters of the world, calling in far off and exotic ports, is the stuff we are made from. Since man was able to tie a few sticks of wood together with twine he has taken to the sea. Our hearts haven’t changed, but our circumstance has.

Cruise ships are not the only culprits when it comes to dumping the unspeakable into our oceans. Corporations and municipalities will not escape our future entries.

We are flushing more than waste into our seas. We are flushing our very existence away and that is the very real, very tragic waste.

Labels: Cruise Ships, Ocean, Sewage, illegal dumping