EPA reports that cruise ships dump massive amounts of poorly treated sewage & highly contaminated raw graywater into harbors & coastal waters

The report is available at http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/cruise_ships/disch_assess_draft.html. Key citations follow.)
“This report shows that cruise ship dumping is out of control and is only getting worse with more ships and more passengers,” said Teri Shore, Campaign Director for Marine Programs at Friends of the Earth. “Since the EPA won’t act, here’s all the evidence that Congress needs to step in to ban cruise ship dumping close to shore and in sanctuaries—and require the best treatment everywhere else.” The report responded to a lawsuit filed by the University of Washington Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of Friends of the Earth in May 2007 seeking a response to a seven-year-old petition calling on the EPA to analyze pollution from the rapidly expanding cruise ship fleet and find ways to prevent environmental harm. The EPA provided detailed pollution data, but no solutions. The EPA found that cruise ship discharges contain concentrations of bacteria, chlorine, nutrients, metals and other pollutants that often far exceed federal effluent and water quality standards and are harmful to human health and the marine environment. The report estimated that cruise ships produce an average of 21,000 gallons per day of sewage and 170,000 gallons per day of raw graywater that can contain as much bacteria as sewage. Large volumes of sewage sludge and oily water are also routinely dumped overboard.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1221-04.htm

Navy saves teen whose appendix burst on cruise

msnbc.msn.com

SAN DIEGO - A teenager whose appendix ruptured at sea, hundreds of miles from help, got safely to shore Tuesday after an unusual rescue in which the Navy airlifted her from a cruise ship for emergency surgery. Laura Montero, 14, fell ill aboard the Dawn Princess cruise ship off the coast of Baja California. The Bahamian-registered ship sent out a distress call Friday that was answered by the USS Ronald Reagan, which was on training maneuvers about 500 miles away. The nuclear carrier was the closest ship with a hospital facility, according to a news release from the Navy. It steamed overnight toward the cruise ship, which was about 250 miles northwest of Cabo San Lucas when the call went out.

A helicopter took off from the Reagan around 5 a.m. Saturday to close the final 175-mile gap between the ships. The crew arrived after a 45-minute flight and lowered a medic onto the cruise ship deck in a basket because there wasn’t space to land, said Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Leland, the pilot. Montero, who was on an antibiotic drip, was loaded into a litter basket, lifted into the helicopter and flown back to the Reagan for an appendectomy. Her mother stayed aboard the cruise ship. “We practice this all the time, but this is the first time I’ve pulled a civilian off a cruise ship,” Leland said. A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises, which operates the Dawn Princess, said the ship’s captain called the Coast Guard for help because he felt that would be faster than diverting to the nearest Mexican port.

Search Ends for 77 Year-old Man Missing from the Carnival Cruise Ship "Fantasy"

www.hattiesburgamerican.com

The search for the 77-year-old Hattiesburg man who went missing from a cruise ship that docked in New Orleans has ended. The Coast Guard suspended its search for the man at 10:15 a.m. Sunday, after investigators discovered a suicide note in the man's cabin, senior investigator Cheri' Ben-Iesau said It indicated the man, who traveled the cruise alone, had health problems, she said. The victim's identity was not released. He was last seen at 7 p.m. Friday, when the Carnival Cruise Ship Fantasy was still almost 28 miles from shore. The Coast Guard searched 400 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico and part of the Mississippi River from the Southwest Pass at the mouth of the river, north to the Port of New Orleans. The Guard also sifted through the ship's dock area "just in the hopes we would find the gentleman," Ben-Iesau said. The guard will continue to run a broadcast for the missing man, despite the fact it has ended the search for him. "We've engaged the maritime community," Ben-Iesau said. "All the vessels out there listen to the broadcasts, so anybody else coming into the area will be on the lookout for him."