Cruising Backs Baltic Rescue Though Adequate Discharge Facilities Lacking

SeaTrade Insider
February 11, 2010

Despite the fact that cruise ships contribute to less than 0.05% of the ‘nutrient loading' problem in the Baltic Sea, the cruise industry is joining the fight against eutrophication by committing to discharge sewage ashore at ports with adequate reception facilities.

David Dingle, chairman of the European Cruise Council and ceo of Carnival UK, made the pledge Wednesday before state leaders at the Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki.

The commitment ‘reflects our determination to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem,' Dingle said, noting that the pledge follows other cruise industry environmental initiatives undertaken during the past years.

‘While it would be misleading to claim that provision of such facilities would solve the problem of eutrophication – clearly cruise ships represent only the tiniest fraction of the nutrients released to the Baltic Sea – we do believe that the ECC commitment makes a very worthwhile contribution to this environmental threat,' Dingle told the summit.

Though the vast majority of nutrients that cause algae growth and oxygen depletion come from agricultural runoff, the passenger shipping industry is being singled out in a proposal by the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) to amend MARPOL Annex IV to designate the entire Baltic Sea as a ‘special area' where essentially no wastewater from passenger vessels would be permitted to be discharged.

In outlining cruising's commitment to offloading sewage at adequate facilities, Dingle defined ‘adequate' as meaning the port can receive all wastewater via direct line/shore connection which can then be effectively treated at the municipal waste water treatment plant. This already exists in the Port of Helsinki, and Dingle said ECC is working with the various stakeholders to achieve this goal in other Baltic ports as well.

The problem faced by the cruise industry is that port reception facilities do not yet exist to manage the volume and demand of wastewater offloading required.

And while advanced wastewater treatment systems available today are effective and continuously evolving, technology does not currently exist that will allow cruise ships to achieve the specific phosphorus and nitrogen reductions that would be required to discharge in a designated ‘special area' as defined by the International Maritime Organization, said Michael Crye, evp of Cruise Lines International Association.

ECC and CLIA recently commissioned the maritime wastewater consulting firm Enviromar to survey 24 Baltic passenger ports to determine the adequacy of the shoreside reception facilities. Enviromar found that up to 90% of Baltic ports may fail to reach the IMO's adequacy definition for passenger ships.

In fact, 75% have no capability to discharge directly from the ship to shoreside. Instead, most ports use tank trailers that are too small to manage ship wastewater volumes. Tallinn and St. Petersburg provide barge facilities in addition to tank trailers, however the availability depends on berth selection. Only six ports in the Baltic have shoreside connections, and these are concentrated in only a couple of ports, Enviromar found.

From experience during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, even the most advanced port reception facilities, namely Helsinki and Stockholm, were shown to have limited discharge capacity due to lower than advertised flow rates.

HELCOM's proposal to designate the entire Baltic as a ‘special area' where essentially no wastewater from passenger vessels would be permitted to be discharged will be discussed at the IMO in March.

Dingle told the Baltic Sea Action Summit yesterday it is ‘crucial' that adequate reception facilities be made available as soon as possible. The area's major ports are actively engaged in making this happen, and the cruise industry is providing support and advice, he told Seatrade Insider.

‘It is a quite complicated issue,' Dingle added.

Cruise ships and ferries make up just a portion of the ship traffic in the Baltic, and all forms of vessels contribute to eutrophication. ‘Cruise shipping in particular is very visible,' Dingle said. ‘My own feeling is that [any regulations] should include shipping as a whole.

And why single out shipping, when land-based industries are the major source of the nutrients that fuel eutrophication?

Saving the Baltic is a passion for communities facing the depletion of fish stocks and the growing amount of algae in the water, Dingle noted. ‘The people of the Baltic region are fairly desperate to do anything and everything they can to improve the situation,' he said. ‘It doesn't matter how great or small. Every little bit helps.'