What will it take for Carnival cruise ships to stop dumping oil, polluting oceans? | Opinion
A guilty plea, $20 million in fines, probation, and court-mandated monitors have failed to stop Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise operator, from polluting our oceans.
Presiding U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz is so frustrated at the failure of Carnival Corp. executives to stop illegal and environmentally damaging oil and waste dumping that she has made personal appeals to chairman Micky Arison.
He needs to take charge, become personally invested in the welfare of the environment, she has told him.
But he is throwing up his arms in convenient despair.
The Forbes-listed billionaire and Miami Heat owner said he has empowered his team, given them “carte blanche” to do what it takes to fix the problem.
“I don’t know what more I can do,” Arison said in court recently, citing his and his company’s philanthropy in helping rebuild the Bahamas after Dorian and in donating $1 million to Australian bush fire relief efforts.
What a disgraceful cop-out.
Raising money for worthy causes (and a self-serving one in the case of the Bahamas, where Carnival does big business) doesn’t buy the company or its chairman a pass on dumping oil-contaminated waste into ocean waters.
The Miami-based company is the worst offender among cruise ship lines, worst polluter of them all, with a history of engaging in cover-ups.
In the latest incident, on Jan. 2, the Carnival Elation spilled some 5,600 gallons of gray water into the sea at Port Canaveral.
Company officials said a valve failed and discharged the non-sewage waste water left over from showers, baths, sinks and laundry facilities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says this water can contain bacteria, pathogens, oil and grease, detergent and soap residue, metals, solids and nutrients.
With Carnival’s track record, who can with confidence believe it was unintentional?
Maybe it’s time for consumers to step in where a federal judge, monitors, and corporate chairman have failed.
How’s people not booking trips on Carnival as an incentive to act to preserve our environment?
Do you really think tourists wanting to get away from it all feel good about being on a ship that is contributing to the destruction of ocean reefs, the habitats of marine life, and polluting the ocean in which we swim?
Bad actors take the joy out of cruising.
And there’s enough trouble out there as it is for all cruise lines.
People have been falling to their deaths or jumping overboard in acts of suicide with alarming regularity. For a while, the norovirus was making people terribly sick. Accidents happen, like the two Carnival ships colliding in December at the port of Cozumel, injuring six passengers.
Add to all that Carnival’s contempt for environmental monitors and disregard for the quality of the water in which the company makes a profit, and you wonder why the prosecutors aren’t filing criminal charges against people.
Given its history, it’s clear the company is writing off fines as the price of doing business.
In 2016, its Princess Cruises line had to pay a $40 million penalty for dumping oily waste and acting to cover it up. It was the largest penalty ever imposed for intentional pollution by a vessel’s employees.
Don’t do it again, the Justice Department warned.
But, it didn’t stop the company’s Holland America Line from engaging in the criminal practice of dumping 26,000 gallons of gray water from sinks and showers in September 2018 into Glacier Bay National Park. The state of Alaska fined them $17,000.
Didn’t stop them, either.
In 2019, violations included discharging plastic into Bahamian waters, falsifying records, and trying to fool court-mandated inspectors by sending teams to clean up their act ahead of inspections.
Company officials keep saying they have a plan and are working to improve their environmental record, including hiring the right people for the job. And, they were thrilled to show reporters a new recycling machine that separates the plastic from food waste.
But a federal judge wouldn’t be trying to convert Arison, turn him into an environmentalist, if the court-appointed monitor hadn’t found repeated violations across the company’s 105-ship fleet.
Burning unfiltered heavy fuel oil in protected areas.
Dumping sewage, chemicals, food waste, gray oily water, and garbage into the sea.
What will it take for Carnival cruise ships to stop polluting oceans?
Maybe when disgusted customers take matters into their own hands, choose to cruise elsewhere, and the company starts losing money, Micky Arison will become Mr. Environmentalist.
Maybe then, he’ll do what he must: Take charge, fix it, no excuses.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
