Dear Editor: The 2025 cruise season will soon begin in our town. The environmental consequences of this form of travel impact local and worldwide ocean waters. Carnival, Princess and Norwegian cruise lines have been fined repeatedly for violations. Carnival has a long history of dumping plastic waste and oily discharge with violations dating back to 1993. They have falsified records and been fined $60 million since 2016. Multiple air quality violations were recorded in 2019.
The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution From Ships (MARPOL) are the standards used worldwide. All ships flagged under countries that are signatories to MARPOL are subject to its requirements, regardless of where they sail, and member nations are responsible for vessels registered on their national ship registry.
Scrubbers are used to meet MARPOL requirements for air quality. Scrubbers take emissions from high sulphur fuel oil burning that would normally go in the air and put it into the ocean. The number of ships using scrubbers has increased from 9 in 2012 to 4,669 in 2024. Recent scientific evidence shows that scrubber discharge is extremely toxic to marine life at very low concentrations. The most popular is an open loop scrubber that constantly discharges acidic waste water that contains hydrocarbons (POHs), nitrates, nitrites, and heavy metals including mercury, lead, and copper. Burning cleaner fuel would help reduce these emissions and would cost very little to the price of passage; however, any carbon based fuel emits CO2. In 2024, cruise ships emitted 29,083 metric tons of CO2 while in Sitka and the projected CO2 in 2025 is 32,815 tons. The total 2025 estimated fuel consumption in Sitka waters by cruise ships is just shy of 2 million gallons.
I encourage you to consider these effects when voting whether or not to limit the number of cruise ships plying our local waters.
Annemarie LaPalme, Sitka
