Cruise Ships: Paradise, Profit and Pollution The oceans are often called the highways of life and mi

Cruise Ships: Paradise, Profit and Pollution The oceans are often called the highways of life and millions of people depend on them for their survival. The oceans are vital to the wellbeing of commercial renting a car if your 18 or older fishermen who depend on the oceans to make a living, men who must fish to feed their families, countries who survive by exporting and importing goods, and to the marine life; the whales and sharks, the sea turtles, the corals and all of the other life supported by the oceans. There are many different types of vessels which use the oceans; oil tankers, tug boats, renting a car if your 18 or older container ships, barges, renting a car if your 18 or older and passenger ships. renting a car if your 18 or older While a fairly small percentage of the total industry worldwide, renting a car if your 18 or older the cruise industry provides more than $25 billion in benefits annually and generates over 295,000 jobs in the U.S. alone. Although there are many laws and regulations internationally, domestically and locally against the dumping of graywater, blackwater, bilge, ballast and garbage into the oceans, cruise lines are still violating the rules and need to be stopped because it is harmful to the marine life, the ecosystem of the oceans and to humans who use the oceans renting a car if your 18 or older for swimming, fishing and survival. Considering the nature of marine pollution and the fact that once it enters the waterways and knows no boundaries, many regional treaties and conventions local and international, have evolved over the years. The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships or Marpol (short for marine pollution) Convention was signed renting a car if your 18 or older on February 17, 1973. However, it did not come into force until October 2, 1983. This was due to the fact that the convention required ratification by 15 states, but by 1976 there were only 3 states, which had ratified it. In response to a rash of tanker accidents a conference was held in 1978 on Tanker Safety and Pollution. The measures adopted at this conference were incorporated into the 1973 Marpol Convention. Now called Marpol 73/78 it includes six technical annexes and is considered to be extremely important to the cause of protecting the oceans and the ecosystem of the marine environment. It was designed to minimize pollution of the seas, including dumping, oil and exhaust pollution. Its stated objective is: to preserve the marine environment through the complete elimination of pollution by oil and other harmful substances and the minimization of accidental renting a car if your 18 or older discharge of such substances: (imo.gov). One hundred thirty six countries had signed on to the Convention as of December 31, 2005. If a ship is flagged renting a car if your 18 or older under a country which has signed on to the Marpol Convention, it is liable to Marpols strict requirements no matter where they sail, and the member nation is responsible for any ship registered under them. In the early 1970 s the United States enacted the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA) that uses a comprehensive and uniform waste management renting a car if your 18 or older system to regulate disposal or dumping of all materials into ocean waters (Copeland 2). In 1988 the House and Senate passed the Ocean Dumping Ban Act (S. 2030), which made it unlawful for any person to dump, or transport for the purpose of dumping, sewage sludge or industrial waste into the ocean waters after December 31, 1991 (epa.gov). Under the Ocean Dumping act the following renting a car if your 18 or older four federal agencies have responsibilities to uphold the regulations: The Environmental Protection Agency, renting a car if your 18 or older the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Coast Guard. Cruise ships can carry over 3,000 passengers and crewmembers, with larger ships being built to carry over 5,000 people not far behind. Cruise ships are known as floating cities. They offer every amenity that one can imagine. The types of waste generated and the harm caused to the oceans by these floating cities is measurable. Graywater is the wastewater from sinks, showers, galleys, laundry and dry cleaning facilities. Phosphates from soaps, shampoos and detergents, fluoride in toothpaste, bacteria from personal hygiene, medical waste, oil and grease from the galleys and dry cleaning fluid are all in the graywater that is dumped into the oceans. The toxicity of these components and oxygen that is taken away from the creatures that live in the oceans are huge. As noted in a report by Kira Schmidt of the Bluewater renting a car if your 18 or older Network, a spokesperson for Royal Caribbean states renting a car if your 18 or older that a typical cruise ship can generate up to 1,000,000 gallons of graywater on a one week voyage (Schmidt 4). Graywater is exempt from U.S. regulations, except in Alaska, renting a car if your 18 or older and there are no international treaties in force. Blackwater is the sewage generated on ships. Sewage is more concentrated on a ship vs. what is generated domestically because there is less water used to diffuse the material. The discharge of raw sewage into the oceans is allowed once the ship is 3 nautical miles from shore except in Alaska. Ships are required by the U.S. Clean Water Act to install marine sanitation devices (MSD) to treat or hold raw sewage. They are to either treat the sewage with chemicals or by using bacteria but this also causes problems because renting a car if your 18 or older this foreign material is introduced to the oceans when discharged. Sewage is harmful to corals and coastlines. Another problem that can surface is, if the waste is discharged near shrimp beds or shellfish beds this would make them unsafe for human consumption. The fact that raw sewage is dumped in the oceans is also repulsive and would definitely affect renting a car if your 18 or older swimmers, boaters, scuba divers and surfers. The discharge of blackwater is supposed to be monitored, although most articles and reports state that little renting a car if your 18 or older monitoring is being done. Bilge is the oily water that collects at the bottom of the vessel called the hull. Typically, renting a car if your 18 or older it is full of residual fuel oil, wastewater from the engines renting a car if your 18 or older and other machinery. It may also contain such materials as paint, cleaning agents, and oily rags. This bilge must be flushed out and pumped dry to help maintain the stability of the vessel. Vessels are required to have a separator on board that will extract renting a car if your 18 or older the oil from the waste to be re-used, incinerated or stored until it can be legally off-loaded at port (Copeland 12). The Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act have regulations that limits the concentrations of bilge water that can be discharged. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was created to impose serious penalties renting a car if your 18 or older for the illegal renting a car if your 18 or older dumping of oil, wastewater, sewage, and other toxic and hazardous substances. Despite the penalties for illegal dumping or discharge, vessels have been found guilty of falsifying records. The cruise ship, The Norway, owned by Norwegian Cruise Line, cost the new owner, Colin Veitch, approximately $1 million in fines for illegally dumping oily waste into the ocean. Veitch found out about the falsified records by the crew of the Norway, which mislead the Coast Guard into thinking pollution was occurring at a legal level and agreed to plead guilty to the Justice Department (www.usatoday). Another case was reported in the July 31, 2008 Oil Spill Intelligence Report, regarding charges brought against the operator for GmbH & Co KG (RKS), a ship management company, and the chief engineer aboard the MV MSC Uruguay, operated by RKS, who pled guilty to falsifying the vessel s Oil Record Book (4). When the MV MSC Uruguay docked in the Port of Philadelphia it was subject to an inspection by the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Coast Guard found out with help from the crew that the ship had illegally discharged bilge waste directly overboard renting a car if your 18 or older in December 2007 and again in January 2008. The crew had hooked a hose up to bypass the separator, and then doctored their books showing they had properly processed the waste. RKS had to pay $1,000,000 in fines and $200,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife foundation, was put on three years probation, and must follow strict environmental laws. Ships must take in millions of gallons of ballast water to stabilize the vessel to ensure safe operating conditions. The water is taken on board at the port where the voyage begins. Many local organisms are sucked in with the water. Some may die during the voyage due to heat, or lack of air or food, but others survive and when the vessel discharges its ballast at the next port of call, these organisms are flushed renting a car if your 18 or older into the foreign water. Many non-native organisms take over and kill the native population causing disruptions in the natural ecosystem, economic troubles, and even carry human diseases. According to a report by the MIT Sea Grant Center for Coastal Resources These introduced renting a car if your 18 or older species, or bioinvaders populations may grow quickly in the absence of natural predators. In turn, bioinvaders may displace native organisms by preying on them or outcompeting native species for food and habitat space. Economic damage may occur when a bioinvader renting a car if your 18 or older displaces species that are harvested for food or other goods (massbay 1). Case in point is the anchovy fisheries in Russia and Turkey, which have all but disappeared due to the introduction of the mnemiopsis leidyl, a comb jelly (similar to a jelly fish) that was likely introduced via ballast water from New England renting a car if your 18 or older (USA) into the Black Sea (massbay2). The Clean Water Act regulations currently exempt ballast water discharges incidental to the normal operations of cruise ships. As reported in the August 28, 2008 Oil Spill Intelligence Report, the shipping company B.Navi Ship Management Services was sentenced to pay a $1.2 million fine and pay the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation $300,000, must serve three years probation, and implement and follow as stringent environmental program which includes a court-appointed monitor and auditing of their ships for compliance with environmental laws because it was guilty of illegally dumping oily sludge, bilge waters and oil-contaminated ballast water and falsifying records to the US Coast Guard (4). According to a report by Oceana a typical cruise ship with 3,000 passen