Federal laws pre-empt state regulations designed to prevent cruise liners from dumping raw sewage near land, like one ship did off Port Townsend last May.
State officials and environmentalists met Monday in Olympia to discuss ways to prevent future incidents as the big passenger ships travel the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Admiralty Inlet to and from Seattle.
Forty tons of raw sewage were released by the Norwegian Sun into waters between Port Townsend and Whidbey Island on May 3.
A crew member aboard the 853-foot cruise ship mistakenly discharged a tank that he thought held kitchen, sink and shower water.
In fact, the ship had just had installed a new wastewater-treatment system, and the tank instead held human sewage, according to the Norwegian Sun’s owner, Norwegian Cruise Line of Miami.
Most of the excrement dissipated in the deep waters of the Strait, but the thought of such an incident happening so close to land — and the state’s inability to enforce rules against it — fueled Monday’s meeting in the state capital.
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The rest of the story appears in Tuesday’s Peninsula Daily News.
