EDITORIAL
Laws can help keep cruise industry clean

It's rare that a big corporation turns itself in for breaking anti-pollution laws and exposes itself to hefty fines.

But that's what the Norwegian Cruise Line did when it discovered that crew members aboard one of its luxury liners had routinely leaked raw sewage and oily bilge water into Florida's Biscayne Bay over four years.

Prosecutors were impressed that after the company's new owners discovered its employees had flouted anti-pollution laws, it waived attorney-client privileges, offered employees for interviews and surrendered documents from its own investigation.

It's good to know that Norwegian has a sense of corporate responsibility and takes seriously environmental rules, considering it's the only company operating regular weekly cruises in Hawai'i.

But while we commend Norwegian's efforts to voluntarily comply with environmental standards, we'd still prefer to see a law passed in Hawai'i that would ensure that cruise ships won't pollute our fragile marine environment.

The cruise industry has traditionally favored a memorandum of understanding with states in which the lines agree with the state to meet environmental standards. They like the flexibility of this approach.

That may be so. But when it comes to protecting Hawai'i's vulnerable ocean waters, we'd rather depend on regulation, regardless of good intentions.