Cruise Ship Blues: The Underside of the Cruise Ship Industry (15 page)

There is also a case — one of the few involving the death of a cruise ship passenger during an outbreak of gastrointestinal disease — of a 52-year-old man who died while aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s
Jubilee
in June 1996. A gastrointestinal virus had struck the ship, afflicting more than 150 passengers and 16 crew members. On the second night Russell Lum complained that he wasn’t feeling well; following a bout of nausea, he spent the next day in his cabin. At 1:30 a.m. on the third day, he was transferred to the infirmary and given an intravenous solution to avoid dehydration.

After a time, the nurse took Lum’s blood pressure and said he was improving and could return to his cabin. Tired but relieved, Mrs. Lum hurried to the cabin to get towels and a change of clothes, because her husband had soiled his pants.

“My daughter and niece were awake, and I told them he was fine and would be coming back,” Mrs. Lum said.

“I was gone about five minutes, and when I got back to the infirmary the doctor and nurse asked me to wait in the waiting room.” [After several minutes] ... “they came back and told me that he had taken a turn for the worse and he had died,” she said. “I asked them how that was possible, and they said there was nothing they could do.”
⁷⁴

Russell Lum died as a result of extensive blood loss from a tear in his esophagus caused by vomiting. His family is suing Carnival Cruise Line for his wrongful death. Carnival’s lawyer, Curtis Mase, contends that the company was not responsible because the death was an act of God and that Lum had failed to seek timely or appropriate medical care. “‘Russell Lum’s own negligence contributed to his death and injuries,’ Mase said.”
⁷⁵

To be fair, not all medical emergencies have grave outcomes. These examples represent the worst. What is glaring, however, is that passengers are not normally forewarned about the quality and nature of medical care on cruise ships. Many cruise lines advertise the presence of medical services, but few point out the limited nature of those services. None clearly state that medical services are provided by a concessionaire for whose actions the cruise line has no responsibility or liability. From the cruise line’s perspective, medical services are provided as a convenience to passengers.

IS A CRUISE SAFE?

With all of this said, the risk of accidents, attack, and disease onboard a cruise ship is relatively small. Disease and harm are certainly not rampant but there is a degree of risk. Taking simple precautions can reduce many risks, but not all. My avoidance of gastrointestinal illness is in part luck, but in part knowing which foods and beverages are relatively safe and which have a high degree of risk. Can you eliminate all risks? Obviously, the answer is no. The question you must ask is whether the risks present are acceptable.

“SAVE THE WAVES” SOUNDS GOOD, BUT ...

It’s
hard
to
fathom
— a company that projects itself as environmentally responsible being fined $33.5 million for polluting the sea. But it’s true. Ever since Royal Caribbean began its “Save the Waves” campaign in 1992, it had continually dumped oil and hazardous chemicals into the environment.

Other cruise lines also project an environmentally friendly image. Princess Cruises has “Planet Princess”; Holland America Line has “Seagoing Environmental Awareness,” with the acronym SEA. Royal Caribbean established its Ocean Fund to further promote an image of environmental responsibility.

A perusal of cruise-line brochures and cruise industry websites suggests that the industry is environmentally sustainable and that it always has been environmentally responsible. Press releases and commitments issued by the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL) further support this impression, but unfortunately, the reality is quite different.

DOWN THE TOILET AND INTO THE SEA

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that each passenger generates 100 gallons of wastewater per day, including 10 gallons of sewage.
¹
A mega-ship with 5,000 passengers and crew produces almost 500,000 gallons of wastewater and

50,000 gallons of sewage every single day of the year. The sheer volume is mind-boggling.

Cruise ships produce other waste, too. Each passenger, in a single day, accounts for about two pounds of burnable waste (which includes some plastic), one pound of food waste — usually disposed of at sea — and two pounds of glass and tin, which may be disposed of at sea. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that in sum, each cruise ship passenger produces 7.7 pounds of waste per day. By the end of 2002 the North American cruise industry will accommodate close to

200.000    passengers every day. Add

100.000    crew members, and the volume of waste produced at sea is overwhelming: in one year, more than

50.000    tons of food waste and

100.000    tons each of glass, tin, and burnable waste.

Add other wastes such as oily bilge water and other engine byproducts, fluorescent and mercury vapor lightbulbs, photo-processing chemicals, dry-cleaning waste fluids, print shop waste fluids, photocopier and laser printer toner cartridges, unused and outdated pharmaceuticals, batteries, cardboard and other packing materials, and incinerator ash. The amount produced is not at all well documented, but it must be considerable given the size of most modern ships.

ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD

Royal Caribbean cites three key principles for its Save the Waves program:

(1)    reduce the creation or generation of waste material;

(2)    recycle as much as possible; and

(3)    ensure proper disposal of remaining waste.

It all sounds good, but does it reflects actual practice? The actions of the cruise industry over the past couple of decades have unfortunately fallen short. The result among some is distrust and skepticism about the industry’s sincerity about environmental responsibility.

A Brief History

Environmental concern about cruise ships is relatively recent. It was first expressed in the late 1980s, focusing on garbage washing ashore on Florida beaches and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In the early 1990s concern led to surveillance by the US Coast Guard. A number of cruise ships were subsequently charged for illegal disposal of plastic garbage bags and for releasing oil into the sea.

The advent of mega-ships increased concern for the proper disposal of both garbage and sewage. The larger size of cruise ships

— an average ship today carries over 2,000 passengers, three times more than an average ship in the 1970s and early 1980s — was accompanied by a growth in the number of cruise ships. The result is exponential increases in the volume of garbage, sewage, and other waste materials. In relatively enclosed areas, such as the Inside Passage in Alaska and British Columbia or parts of the Caribbean, raw sewage has become as big a problem as other discharges from cruise ships.

In 1993, following more than one hundred unsuccessful attempts to have the problem addressed by the state in which offending ships were registered,
³
the American government was forced to take direct action in the form of stricter enforcement for pollution offences.
⁴

Princess Cruises was fined $500,000 in April 1993 for dumping more than 20 plastic bags full of garbage off the Florida Keys.

Videotape made by a couple on the cruise was used to indict Princess Cruises for unlawful dumping of plastics at sea and was the basis for a plea bargain. Because it is allowed by statute, and as an incentive aimed at encouraging cruise ship passengers to report illegal dumping of waste, the court awarded the couple one-half of the fine. They received $250,000.
⁶

Palm Beach Cruises was fined $1 million a year later, after Coast Guard surveillance aircraft videotaped the
Viking Princess
intentionally dumping waste oil, leaving a 2.5-mile-long slick in its wake as it sailed 3.5 miles from the port of Palm Beach. This was the first successful criminal prosecution of the strict new federal oil dumping laws enacted after the
Exxon Valdez
spill. The fine was for both dumping and failing to report the incident.
⁷

In the months that followed, Royal Caribbean International was investigated after a report that one of its ships had released oil into the sea. The investigation soon expanded to include two ships in separate incidents. Four years later, Royal Caribbean paid $9 million in fines to settle the cases. In other incidents, Regency Cruises agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 after admitting that two of its ships had dumped garbage-filled plastic bags

into Florida waters, and Ulysses Cruises paid a $500,000 fine for two incidents of plastic-wrapped garbage being thrown from the
Seabreeze
off Miami and two cases of dumping oily bilge water. One incident involving garbage had been observed by a musician; the other, by a passenger. Both incidents involving oily bilge water were detected by Coast Guard surveillance.

But it wasn’t until 1999 that the issue of pollution from cruise ships came under the spotlight after Royal Caribbean International agreed to pay a record $18-million fine after pleading guilty to numerous pollution-related offences.

Line paid a $1-million fine and $1 million in restitution following a 1995 incident in which it pumped oily bilge water overboard in Alaska’s Inside Passage. The assistant engineer who reported the incident received a reward of $500,000 — again, one-half of the company’s fine.