(Alaska) Senate votes to ease cruise ship wastewater rules

[Blue_In_AK]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- The Alaska Senate on Tuesday approved on a 14-6 vote a Parnell administration measure to roll back 2006 cruise ship wastewater standards.

The bill, already passed by the House, is the first measure to clear both the House and Senate in the 2013 legislative session that began just over a month ago.

Democrats Bill Wielewchowski, Dennis Egan, Hollis French, Berta Gardner, Johnny Ellis and Donny Olson voted against it. All the Senate Republicans voted for the measure, as did Democrat Lyman Hoffman.

The legislation allows the cruise industry to indefinitely discharge ammonia, a product of human waste, and heavy metals, dissolved from ship plumbing. Those discharges would have been banned in 2015 under a 2006 citizen initiative.

The legislation also ends the work of an advisory panel on cruise ship wastewater created in a 2009 law that had been tasked with investigating whether the technology exists to meet the standards.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2013/02/19/2794809/senate-votes-to-ease-cruise-ship.html

---

This move was strongly opposed by most Alaskans, the stalwart Democrats and a couple of sane Republicans, but in the end, the cruiselines' big money won out. In 2006 we passed a citizens' initiative tightening up the cruise ship wastewater standards which was passed into law. This bill effectively overturns all of that.

I hate to do it, but I would urge anyone considering a cruise to Alaska to fly up and rent a car instead. Please boycott the cruise lines, particularly Princess, which was the main bad actor here.

[They_Live]

1. Idiots.

We're just destroying ourselves, with greed and stupidity for all.

[Trajan]

37. They are destroying the pristine waters in Alaska

We get stuck with the floating ice turds .... Pitiful ...

[Bandit]

43. These Cruise ships have waste water treatment plants on board and the end product is drinkable

The state can not say that about it's marine highway system (State Ferries)... I think people are making a big deal about something they know nothing about....

[judesedit]

2. These wasteful,uncaring idiots do NOT own that water.Belongs to the people & planet.Fed get involved

[Angry Dragon]

3. The waste should be dumped into the offices of anyone that voted for this

and let them take care of the waste if it such a good thing

[wordpix]

22. +1000, agreed

[Helen Reddy]

4. Mother Earth weeps n/t

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

5. Sarah Palin probably supports it

She's been dumping her and her family's shit all over Alaska for years, after all.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. This was all Sean Parnell,

her successor, who is so bad he makes me miss Sarah every day.

[DainBramaged]

6. By the time I die every inch of Earth will be poisoned by these fucks

They should be forced to swim in the water and eat fish from the bay.


Stupid stupid bastards.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Add some Heavy Metal to my Frankenstein Salmon, would you please, waiter?

We're all canaries now.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. Very tiny amounts of copper are known to mess with Salmon's navigation system.

They won't be able to find their way home to spawn.

[Earth_First]

10. My wife and I have had an Alaskan passage cruise on our honeymoon shortlist...

This will definately remove any notion of taking a cruise as part of an Alaskan honeymoon.

[d_b]

11. so happy to be leaving this shithole

[Blue_In_AK]

13. I'm sorry, d_b.

Where are you off to?

My husband tries to get me to leave (every winter), but I've been here since 1975 and I love the place. Hate the politics, but love the place. It's a shame when there are so many good people here that the government just walks all over us. Sean Parnell is making even Sarah look good.

[d_b]

40. washington state

get out while ya can, blue :p

[xtraxritical]

14. Please flush.

[Arctic Dave]

19. Great, one less Dem.

Where ever you find yourself be sure to tell all the Progressives to move here, we need all the help we can get.

[newfie11]

12. Will do! No ship for us. Nt

[davidpdx]

15. I agree with you, but most people outside DU probably won't do it

The legislature was wrong to overturn the will of the people. If this happened in a more liberal state you can bet the righties would be screaming. Dumping waste into the ocean will kill the sea and everything in it. Forget about eating any seafood that comes from Alaska. Eww, sludge filed seafood.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. I think it's still pretty clean out in Bristol Bay,

assuming they don't end up approving the Pebble Mine. One crisis after another up here.

[davidpdx]

24. So where specifically can they dump the waste?

The article didn't make that very clear.

[Blue_In_AK]

27. It's down in Southeast mostly...

...Juneau, Sitka, etc.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. Fits in with one of the images I posted/shared in my FaceBook

.
.
.

[Blue_In_AK]

18. :)

[dbackjon]

20. Thanks for letting me know

My family (all 14 of us) are considering an Alaska cruise in 2014. Will have to rethink this.

[jerseyjack]

21. What's the problem?

Da fish don't mind a little shit in the water. Then again, we sometimes eat those fish.

But then, again, farmers feed chicken manure (shit) to cattle.

[wordpix]

23. glad I got to Alaska when it was still teeming with salmon, halibut, shrimps...

the water was crystal everywhere

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

25. Effin Republicans are low ...

... lower than whale shit.

[Swede Atlanta]

26. Pump the crap into the homes, not offices, of those that voted for this.....

They could care less about their office staff. They are expendable "collateral" damage.

But they might not like it when their pot roast had a few turds floating around in it or the toxic level in their coffee was off the charts.

These guys are disgusting. The state of Alaska projects itself as the last frontier, "pristine, unmolested", etc. Well we know it is now just a sewer.

I won't be going there anytime soon.

Hope their tourist dollars dry up and they have to start paying taxes again.

[oldandhappy]

28. Destroyers

Destroying the very reason the ships come.

Hey you all, no bail out!

[Blue_In_AK]

29. Someone here said

imagine you're enjoying a nice dockside meal in some cozy restaurant as the cruise waste floats by. Real appetizing...

[leftyohiolib]

30. carnival feces paid 1.1% tax on their 11 billion

[Bainbridge Bear]

31. As a former resident of Southeast Alaska

where most of these cruise ships operate I am disgusted but not surprised by this decision. Unfortunately, there are too many Alaskans who consider their home as a place that has been "locked up" by the Feds and the politicians are usually in line with "development" interests. I used to live in Juneau and the cruise ships are a real hindrance. They come in groups at times and the number of tourists crowding downtown has to be seen to be believed. Locals make a point of avoiding their own city. The ships also run their generators while they are docked and I saw many days when the air was dirty from their smokestacks. This latest ruling just allows the cruise ships to further degrade what used to be a generally pristine environment.
I recommend that anyone considering a trip up the Inside Passage please consider the Alaska Marine Highway as an alternative. They use the same route and are safe and comfortable as well as being far cheaper than the cruise ships. On the Alaska Marine Highway you will meet real Alaskans and not just tourists. Check out their website.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I totally agree with you about the Alaska Marine Highway.

In fact, my husband and I are doing that trip in May, driving the 750 miles or so to Haines and then taking the ferry to Juneau and Sitka, spending a few nights in each city. It's really great because you can take your own vehicle and spend as much time as you want in each port. I did that trip many years ago and enjoyed it immensely. It's unbelievably beautiful down there.

Here's an interesting factoid about the cruise ships:

About 30 cruise ships carry a total of nearly 1 million people to Alaska over a five-month period each year. The result is more than a billion gallons of waste discharged into unknown areas of state waters.

On Jan. 29, as the relaxed laws were being fast-tracked by legislators, Princess Cruises was fined $20,000 after one of its vessels, the 2,590-passenger Golden Princess, discharged 66,000 gallons of chlorinated pool water into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/02/09/2783491/aine-welch-bill-to-ease-cruise.html#storylink=cpy

[Broken_Hero]

36. Ditto on the AMH

I always tell folks the best, cheapest way to go on an Alaskan cruise is to go on the Alaska Marine Highway. If memory serves they still have a port in Bellingham, WA, and you can take a boat all the way up to Skagway.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Hoping for the day this filthy bill will be reversed. So sorry for Alaska. n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

34. I think what makes it even harder to take

is that so many people put their time and effort into getting the signatures for the initiative in 2006 and passing it against incredible financial odds. I think we were outspent probably 10 to one. It was amazing the amount of money the cruise industry threw into defeating it, but we were successful...and now this.

Here is the text of our 2006 initiative and the amounts spent. The governor already managed to get the $50 tax reduced and now he's done away with the wastewater portion of it.

Text of measure

The text of the proposal was as follows:
This initiative would impose a $46 per person per voyage tax on large cruise ships to pay for vessel services. It would provide for the proceeds from the tax to be deposited in the state general fund and, subject to appropriation by the legislature, distributed to municipalities. It would levy a tax on cruise ship gambling activities in state waters. It would change the way cruise ship corporate income tax is calculated. It would require cruise ship operators to gather and report more information, and get a new type of permit for sewage, graywater or other wastewater before discharging in state marine waters. It would assess a $4 per passenger berth fee and require large cruise ships to have state-employed marine engineers (Ocean Rangers) licensed by the Coast Guard to observe health, safety and wastewater treatment and discharge operations. It would authorize citizen lawsuits against an owner or operator of a large cruise ship, or against the Department of Environmental Conservation, for an alleged violation of any permit condition, provision of environmental statutes or performance of duties. It would also enable a person who provides information leading to enforcement of the law to receive 25 to 50 percent of fines imposed. It would impose additional requirements on disclosures about on-ship promotions of shore-side businesses.
Campaign expenditures

The group in favor of the shipping tax was called "Responsible Cruising in Alaska." They raised and spent just $8,497.
The group opposed to the shipping tax was called "Alaskans Protecting our Economy." They raised and spent $1,357,924, with the largest single donation of $1,344,244 coming from the Northwest Cruiseship Association.[9]

So we were outspent more than 100 to one, not 10 to one. But with this result, it makes me wonder why we bothered.

[Broken_Hero]

35. Fucking shit....

well, yeah...Literally shit. I'm from SE and those fucking boats would dump their shit right after leaving port, I recall that happening at least a couple times a month.

I use to work on the docks for a tourist trap and when those fuckers would dump there sewage...oh gawd.

eta:to make less inflammatory, story hit a little close to home, much like the bridge to nowhere.

[Blue_In_AK]

38. I hear ya.

I'm just livid about this, along with everything else they're doing down there. It really sucks that most of us live up here on the road system and can't even get down there to camp out on the capitol steps. Are you still in Southeast? Do you know anyone in Juneau who's a legislature watcher? We're trying to keep our eyes on Lindsey Holmes, the Turnagain Turncoat, and keep tabs on how she's voting now that she's a shiny new baby Republican. I would like to call her a word that people frown on here. Grr...

Tell anyone you know in Anchorage that there is website http://www.recalllindseyholmes.com , and we would appreciate all the help we can get. We're official with APOC, so we're taking contributions.

[Broken_Hero]

45. No, I've been out of state for over a decade now

What the boats use to do, was "accidently" dump their sewage and say...well, oops. Then the city started charging a fine for that happening, which the boats took as a cue to, well you can dump, for X price and it got a bit worse(I'm talking a majority of the 90s).

At any given day, we could have 6 boats in town, each boat carrying 3kpeople. The worst line ime was the Princess Cruise boats, the best the Norwegian boats, and oddly the best boats were the gay cruise ships, it was always great times when they would come into port.

[Blue_In_AK]

46. Princess was fined earlier this year

for dumping thousands of gallons of chlorinated water in Glacier Bay National Park. You're right, they are the main offenders. I hate what they and the other developers have done to "Glitter Gulch," the area on the Parks Highway outside of Denali National Park. They've really spoiled what used to be a beautiful drive down through there.

[SoapBox]

39. ...amazingly stoopid.

[tanyev]

41. What could possibly go wrong?

[lonestarnot]

42. Fuck you richie rich. Shit where you eat you eat you bastards!

[Sunlei]

44. Alaska should start to use scientists before they ruin the seafood industry for everyone.

"Anti-anxiety drugs in wastewater impact fish behavior"

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/anti-anxiety-drugs-impact-wastewater-fish-behavior/

[One_Life_To_Give]

47. Do the Cities and Towns comply?

Or are we burning soft coal while complaining about our neighbors smoking?

[Blue_In_AK]

48. Good remarks from The Mudflats this morning

http://www.themudflats.net/?p=35960

Despite massive public outcry, and good efforts by Democratic lawmakers, the legislature has voted to pass a bill that will loosen restrictions on the cruise industry, and lower water quality standards for coastal waters. HB80 now heads to the Governor’s desk.

None of the Democratic amendments which would have required dumping at least 3 miles offshore, not next to marine parks or game refuges, public notification of the location of dump sites, and water monitoring passed. The bill was voted through as it was, and zipped through the senate with a vote of 16-4. The yes votes included Democratic Senator Dennis Egan who represents Juneau, where this bill hits closest to home. Egan decided to caucus with Republicans this legislative session. After that and this vote, if he’s not hanging his head in shame, or getting smacked upside of it by constituents, he should be.

But if you look at the list of Republicans who took money from the cruise industry this past election, suddenly it comes into clear focus why representatives on that side of the aisle, who are supposed to have our best interests at heart seem to have a different priority.
This bill actually overturns the will of the people of Alaska, and undermines a citizens’ initiative passed by the voters in 2006.

Senator Lesil McGuire (R-Anc) was asked what she thought of that.

“…actually when you sit back and look at voter psychology, when people go into the ballot booths, it’s not clear that voters always understand what they’re voting on, to be honest.”

I’m not quite sure on this… Is that dripping contempt, or just oozing contempt for the voters?

<snip>

Actually, I think Lesil is on to something there. People obviously don't understand who they're voting for when they keep voting them back into office.