Cruise ship operators set conditions for end to dumping at the Baltic Sea

Alla Petrova, BC, Riga, 12.10.2010.

 

Cruise ship operators are demanding that harbors on the Baltic Sea agree to improvements in facilities for receiving and processing waste water, such improvements would be a condition to their agreement to a demand by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for a complete ban on dumping sewage in the Baltic from 2013, Helsingin Sanomat reports.

"The waste water rule would take effect as soon as there is sufficient capacity. This will not necessarily happen by 2013 or 2018," says Anita Mäkinen, chief of the environmental unit at the Finnish Transport Safety Agency.

In addition to regular car ferry traffic, about 350 international cruise ships sail the Baltic each year. Such cruises are especially popular among tourists from the United States, informs LETA.

Such a total ban would be unique in the world. However, not even the collective will of all nine countries on the Baltic Sea and the IMO countries that supported them is enough. The Baltic Sea countries agreed on common legislation at a ministerial meeting of the Baltic Sea Protection Commission Helcom held in Moscow on May.

"In Moscow agreement was reached on how capacity at harbours would be improved, and what the timetable would be. However, the harbours belong to cities or to private companies, so we face a challenge on how to target the pressure", Mäkinen says.

If the systems in the harbors are put into shape, and the law is implemented, then pressure for similar arrangements in other seas will grow.

"The large shipping lines were afraid that this would be approved, because now other sea areas in the world might make similar demands", Mäkinen notes.

The Mediterranean countries, as well as Canada, for instance, were in favor of the Baltic Sea rules at the IMO meeting in late September.

"In the Baltic Sea, collecting waste water is especially important because of eutrophication. The Mediterranean, Alaska, and the Caribbean have nutrient problems or hygiene reasons to promote similar legislation", Mäkinen says.

Of the ports on the Baltic, only Helsinki, Stockholm, and Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland have the sewage systems required by the shipping lines.

"Usually ships are in port for only a few hours. In other harbors an entire fleet of septic pumper trucks are needed, and that is not a good solution", Mäkinen says.

The environmental group WWF ascertained in late September that much of the waste water from cruise ships is discharged untreated into the Baltic Sea. This is not illegal if it happens at a sufficient distance from shore.

Passenger vessels – mainly cruise liners and car ferries – are like small villages carrying between 2,000 and 5,000 passengers and crew at a time. About 90 million passengers make stops at the large harbours of the Baltic Sea each year.

"Cruise lines and harbour cities earn millions of euros. They should also solve their environmental problems", says Vanessa Klötzer, maritime expert of WWF.

According to WWF's calculations, the number of cruise passengers in the Baltic Sea has tripled to more than three million in the past decade.

The organization estimates that the 415,000 guests who visit Stockholm alone bring EUR 54 million to the city each year.

This year only half of the 240 cruise ships visiting Stockholm have had their waste water removed in port. In Helsinki about two thirds of the approximately 250 cruise liners have done so.

http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/&doc=32627