Cruise-line sewage bill advances in House

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

A bill regulating the discharge of pollutants by commercial cruise ships in Hawai'i won approval from three separate House committees yesterday.

The proposed program would allow for independent verification of environmental compliance through the Department of Health, which would monitor discharges from cruise ships through registration, information gathering, record-keeping, reporting and inspections.

Prohibited would be any discharge of wash-water drainage, oily bilge water, solid waste, hazardous waste and medical waste coming from commercial passenger vessels.

Rep. Brian Schatz, D-25th (Makiki, Tantalus), chairman of the Economic Development and Business Concerns Committee, is the lead author of the bill. He said the discharge of sewage appears to be covered by the federal Clean Water Act and the state may be precluded from enacting stricter laws in that area.

The proposed regulations come at a time when the growing cruise industry is worth an estimated $800 million to the state economy. The state has an existing memorandum of understanding with cruise industry companies pertaining to air and water emissions. Environmentalists say that the agreement does not go far enough. The industry and members of the Lingle administration testified that the agreement protects up to four nautical miles from discharges while the state can only legislate up to three miles offshore.

The committees on Economic Development and Business Concerns, Tourism and Culture, and Energy and Environmental Protection all voted to advance House Bill 2190. The bill now goes to the House Transportation Committee.

Under the bill, operators would need to install and maintain tamper-proof automated data collection equipment approved by the Health Department to record the dates, times, volumes or flow rates, and locations of any discharges into marine waters around the state. The operator would need to maintain records of the dates for at least three years.

Illegal discharges would carry penalties as high as $25,000 for each offense.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.