Friends of the Earth is exposing and fighting pollution and exploitation of our ecosystems. Our Clean Vessels campaign is cleaning up the cruise industry, protecting marine sanctuaries, and reducing air pollution from ocean-going vessels. The environment is for everyone, and a healthy and just world requires clean air and water.
Read the latest news and updates from our Air and Water campaigns:
The Port of Vancouver has announced that cruise lines visiting the port during the upcoming Winter Olympics, including Holland America Line, Carnival Cruise Lines and Norwegian Cruise Lines, will commit to implementing several environmentally friendly measures to protect the air and waters of the port from pollution. These green measures include: use of lower-sulfur fuel, a ban on the discharge of any waste into the harbor, disposal of sewage and other wastewater to shore-based facilities, and a prohibition on the use of ship board incinerators.
In January, DC Bureau, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of investigative reporters ran two great in depth pieces on cruise industry lobbying, cruise industry pollution and how cruise ships, despite their dependence on the very pristine environments to which they travel, are dumping raw sewage into our oceans.
With the holidays behind us, perhaps you are feeling a bit blue? Why not take advantage of that feeling by wearing blue for the oceans on January 13 and joining us at one of many events being planned from coast to coast! Everyone is encouraged to wear the color blue on Wednesday -- whether it’s a pair of blue surf shorts in sunny Hawaii, or, given the nation’s recent cold snap, a blue coat -- to show support of a national oceans policy!
Photo courtesy © 2009 Sherman’s Lagoon.
With the enormous growth of the cruise industry in the past 10 years and the December 1 launch of the largest cruise ship ever built – Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas – Friends of the Earth has taken an extensive look at the environmental footprint and practices of the cruise industry, an industry that has long avoided comprehensive environmental regulation and pollution controls.
Authored by cruise industry expert, Ross Klein, Getting a Grip On Cruise Ship Pollution looks at all aspects of the cruise industry, from its pollution streams, to its history of environmental violations, to the modest number of environmental laws that govern the industry. The report also contains a wide-ranging set of recommendations that provide solutions for comprehensive environmental reform of the cruise industry.
Last Friday, October 30th, the oil tanker Dubai Star spilled an estimated 400-800 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay almost two years to the day after the Cosco Busan spilled over 50,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the Bay. The bunker fuel spread out into a 4 mile long slick and has currently polluted at least six miles of Bay shoreline closing several beaches, killing at least 14 birds and oiling 35 others so far.
Earlier today Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Clean Cruise Ship Act of 2009 with 28 other members of Congress signed on in support. Cruise ships are currently allowed to dump raw sewage and other pollutants just three nautical miles from our coasts. The Clean Cruise Ship Act will put a stop to the lax pollution disposal practices of the cruise industry and protect our coastal waters and oceans.
For several years, Friends of the Earth and various other environmental groups, air regulators, and public health organizations have worked with the EPA to create an “Emission Control Area” that would dramatically reduce air pollution from large ships – pollution that is responsible for serious health impacts including premature death, lung cancer, heart attacks, and respiratory illness.
Our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are places of wonder and beauty, and they are also economic engines that provide valuable jobs, food, recreation, energy resources, and tourism. However, these essential resources are currently managed by more than 140 different, and often conflicting, laws which can lead to poor management and even worse problems.
In order to overcome the enormous challenges faced by our oceans and Great Lakes -- including air and water pollution, habitat loss, and climate change -- we need one unifying national policy that will protect, maintain, and restore the health of our ocean ecosystems.
Friends of the Earth submitted comments to President Barack Obama’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. We commend President Obama for addressing the critical need for a national policy unifying ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes protections and we make recommendations for improving regulation of the significant air and water pollution from the shipping industry.
Read our comments to the Ocean Policy Task Force.
Friends of the Earth has come out in opposition to the nomination of Joseph G. Pizarchik to become the the Director of the Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement, which is part of the Department of the Interior. Our opposition to his nomination is informed both by his experiences in regulating coal mining and coal combustion waste in Pennsylvania, as well as our desire to see fundamental change at an agency that continues to allow the unlawful expanded use of one of the most destructive forms of coal mining, mountaintop removal.
