CTV.ca News Staff

Two New Democrats held a press conference at a major Vancouver cruise ship terminal on Friday, to protest the level of pollution emitted by the large vacation vessels.

Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian said Canada is failing to protect its waters from waste.

"What we've got now is a situation where cruise ships can dump with impunity and we don't think that's in the interest of British Columbians or Canadians," he told reporters, joined by Victoria MP Denise Savoie. "It's certainly not in the interest of the cruise ship industry.

"What we need in place is a clean cruise ship act so that those cruise ship lines that have been the most environmentally responsible have a competitive advantage."

To make their point, the two MPs stood in front of the cruise ship Mercury, operated by Miami-based Celebrity Cruises, Inc.

Last year, the ship was caught dumping 2,600 litres of sewage in waters between British Columbia and Washington state.

The company was fined about $100,000 and paid the money to the U.S., but owed nothing to Canada. And the company has admitted to polluting Canadian waters three times.

Last week in the House of Commons, Savoie tabled a bill for tougher regulations of waste discharge from cruise ships. The proposed legislation would bring Canada in line with similar restrictions in Alaska, Washington and California.

Cruise ship industry analyst Ross Klein, a professor in the school of social work at Memorial University of Newfoundland, said the vessels produce thousands of litres of waste.

He told The Canadian Press that each person aboard a cruise ship produces 341,000 litres of grey water -- the water collected from sinks and showers -- each day. That's in addition to 26 litres of daily sewage.

And some ships carry as much as 6,000 people.

"The cruise ship industry does a very good job of promoting itself as being environmentally green," said Klein.

"The problem is that passengers don't know what they actually do."

But the industry argues it's leading the environmental charge, pointing to new technologies that reduce waste, cut emissions and clean sewage -- regardless of whether cruise ships are in American or Canadian waters.

"Once you have the equipment on board, you're not going to shut it down as you cross one border from Alaska into B.C.," said John Hansen, a cruise ship industry advocate.

Each person person producing 341,000 litres of grey water? who on earth uses 341 tons of water each day??? you would have to have normal shower running for a couple of thousand hours to get that much waste water.

the sewage in most cases (99.9%) is treated and processed so the end result is clear water that if you didn't know better you would drink.

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Originally posted by mike sa:
341000 ltrs sounds about right , TOTAL use of water buy the ship (air con, engineering etc) divided by the nuber of pax.

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Oh, come now. Do the math. The statement is absolute bilge water (to use a nautical term).

The idiot said each passenger produces 341,000 litres of grey water per day. Feargus correctly interpreted that as meaning 341 (metric) tonnes per day per passenger. For example, on a ship carrying 1000 passengers that would amout to 341,000 metric tonnes per day. There is no way in this world that the statement can be true.

Either the university professor is a complete idiot or he has been misquoted by a complete idiot.

Brian

[ 06-17-2007: Message edited by: Brian_O ]

Whatever amout of water is used by people aboard ship is only equal to a lesser amount being used wherever they have come from. Vessels with treatment plants could be put to good use here when laid-up or retired

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Originally posted by NAL:
It sounds as if this Ross Klein is an environmental-wacho with his outlandish statistics. Feargus and Brian_O have it right. This guy is an idiot!

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Here's Ross Klein's web site. Maybe you can all write to him and tell him he is an idiot and doesn't know what he is talking about.

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~rklein/

ross@cruisejunkie.com
rklein@mun.ca

"And some ships carry as much as 6,000 people." What cruise ship carries 6,000 people?
None that I know of. This guy needs to get his statistics right.

[ 06-17-2007: Message edited by: sympatico ]