Alaska Cruise Ships Sewage

The Impact of Cruise Ship Wastewater Discharge on Alaska Waters.

Alaska cruise ships sewage. Wastewater treatment permits. On some cruise ships especially many of those that travel in Alaskan waters sewage is treated using Advanced Wastewater Treatment AWT systems that generally provide improved screening treatment disinfection and sludge processing as compared with traditional MSDs marine sanitation devices. The ships dump wastewater into Alaskan coastal waters and leave partially-treated sewage heavy metals and chemical pollutants in their wakes.

It explained how much waste the floating cities produce. Its the latter scrubber washwater that may be the discharge of most concern. Cruise ships discharge water that is treated to some of the worlds most stringent standards.

The proposed changes are only to citations in the regulations to Alaska Statutes. Michelle Bonnet Hale the former director of the Division of Water in the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation DEC said it would be a step backward to require ships to hook up to community-based systems as some have suggested. The proposed regulation updates PDF were made available for a 30 day comment period.

All cruise ships have wastewater treatment systems on board for their gray and black water. According to information gathered by EPA during ship visits and via responses to EPAs survey of cruise ships operating in Alaska in 2004 the following waste streams were routed to the graywater system2 Wastewater from bar and pantry sinks. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Challenging Alaskas Cruise Ship Pollution Cruise ship at Alaskas Tracy Arm Fjord. November 2002 Note- Weblinks removed 2013 due to web errors. The sewage on the cruise ship includes the wastewater from the bathrooms toilets urinals medical premises and other similar facilities.

Forty large cruise ships operated in Alaska in 2019 of those twenty four ships were authorized to discharge treated wastewater in Alaska and eighteen ships discharged treated wastewater and conducted sampling. Mostcruise ships are permitted by Alaskas Department of Environmental Conservation DEC to dump treated wastewater while moving at 6 knots or faster anywhere anytime in Alaska. The Mountain Point wastewater treatment plant run by Ketchikans borough is allowed to put out more than 10 times as much as cruise ship systems.