NEARLY
TWO OUT OF THREE OF DEFENDANTS’ VOYAGES INTO
|
Cruise Ship Company |
No. of voyages into CA waters since |
No. of ballast water discharge violations since |
|
Carnival |
333 |
244 |
|
Princess |
57 |
44 |
|
Royal |
242 |
138 |
|
|
66 |
9 |
Data
compiled from State Lands Commission records
What
is ballast water?
Ballast water is seawater pumped into the bottom of ships to ensure stability at sea, and discharged as needed in coastal waters or ports before loading cargo and/or passengers. Cruise ships can carry many tens of thousands of gallons of ballast water. But even the discharge of one gallon containing harmful exotics can propagate an invasive epidemic.
Why
is ballast water an environmental problem?
Ballast
water from coastal areas can contain numerous invasive plants and animals
that crowd out native species. It is the single largest source of invasive
species found in
What
is the extent of the problem?
Over 234
non-native plant and animal species have already been established in the San
Francisco Bay/Delta. Up to 97 percent of all organisms and 99 percent of all
the biomass in
What
are the economic impacts?
The Environmental
Protection Agency has estimated the economic cost of invasive species alone
to be over $122 billion per year, with $5 billion of that cost attributable
to aquatic invasive species.
What
laws regulate ballast water discharges?
To
prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species, the State Legislature
passed The Ballast Water Management for Control of Nonindigenous Species (AB
703) in 1999. It became effective in January of 2000. Under the new law, ships traveling into
·
exchange ballast water in deep mid-ocean waters beyond
the
·
retain the ballast water on board while in
· discharge the ballast water to an approved onshore retention facility;
· treat the ballast water with an approved method that kills organisms; or
· exchange ballast water in a zone approved by the State Lands Commission.
Currently, no treatment technologies, onshore retention facilities nor alternate exchange zones are approved, leaving deep-water/mid-ocean exchange or retention of ballast water as the only legal options.
The
provides
for voluntary ballast water management for all vessels coming into US waters
from outside the EEZ, and recommends the use of open-ocean exchange.
In 1990,
the International Maritime Organization, through its Marine Environment Protection
Committee, drafted its first set of voluntary ballast water management guidelines.
The guidelines call for open ocean exchange of ballast water. The IMO guidelines
remain voluntary.
Why
single out the cruise industry?
Unlike cargo and oil tankers, cruise ships travel primarily in coastal waters less than 200 miles out to sea. To avoid the time and cost of going out to sea to exchange ballast water, the ships often pick-up and discharge ballast water too close to shore.
The cruise
industry is growing at a steady 8% per year. Since September 11, more cruise
ships are being positioned along the West Coast. The relatively pristine waters
of
Worldwide, more ships are slated to enter service in 2002 than any other single year in the history of the industry. A total of 15 will hit the seas this year, and the cruise industry is expected to introduce 37 new vessels by 2004, increasing passenger capacity by 35 percent. The international cruise ship fleet includes 223 ships that carried 9.5 million passengers in 1998; approximately one-half of this fleet operates in North American waters.
The