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The Global Cruise Industry: Cruising for an Environmental Bruising?
Illegal discharge of waste into the sea: a case study
The cruise line, Holland America pleaded guilty to criminal charges in Alaska, USA in 2004, after one of its ships (the Ryndam) discharged around 20,000 gallons of sewage into the harbour of Juneau, a city in the south east of that state, in August 2002. The facts of the case make disturbing reading:
- an engineer began to transfer sewage from a treatment machine to a ballast tank at 5pm
- the Ryndam was tied up in the harbour at the time and the engineer forgot to close a valve
- at 6pm the engineer left the ship to go ashore
- 30 minutes later an alarm sounded in the engine room to warn that the ballast tank was nearly full
- a visual alert was also triggered on a screen to warn engine room officers
- engine room crew switched off the alarm and ignored the visual warning and nothing was done to find out what was happening
- at 6.50pm the ballast tank began to overflow into the harbour
- at 7pm an off-duty crew member reported seeing discoloured water at the side of the vessel
- at 7.30pm a Juneau resident alerted a Ryndam security officer that 'something was bubbling up from the dock side of the ship'
- other passers-by also noticed the leak and told the ship's crew
- none of the crew went to the dockside to investigate until 9pm
- at 9pm an engineer closed the valve
- Holland America initially estimated that only 500 gallons of sewage had been discharged
- a week later, the firm admitted that the leak actually involved 20,000 gallons of sewage
- the company faced criminal charges and paid fines totalling $2 million to the state and federal government and was put on probation for three years
It emerged that at the time of the Juneau incident, Holland America was still on probation for discharging oily bilge water in the same location eight years earlier. A company spokesperson apologised, but was quoted in the Alaskan news media as saying: 'The bottom line is, mistakes happen, but we've taken a ton of measures to make sure this doesn't happen again'.