Carnival Charged with Dumping at Sea

While speaking with a friend of mine last night he said that it was on the 10 pm news that Carnival has been charged with dumping sewage in Mexican and Caribbean waters and faces stiff fines not too mention that is going to cost the line an extra
15 million dollars for smething else and was wanting to know if anyone heard this.

[Donna]

Hi NJMatt,
Yes, I too heard this, kind of unsettling news

[Jim Bragg]

NJ,
What it is, Carnival made a guilty plea and offered to pay $15 million in fines and grants etc because of poor records that showed that five of thier ships had unlawfully pumped out bildgewater that contained more than the allowable amount of oil and other pollutants, that being 5 ppm or 5 ppb I think. The records were falsified by shipboard members. This is really a huge amount considering what actually happened. The amount of damage is unbelievable small if any and you probably have more pollution discharged by regular cargo ships every day than the total of CCL combined. Cruise ships are a very easy target simply because they are so visible and not a necessary form of transportation, just a fun thing to do for 'the elite cruises'. We know that is a false idea as cruising IS necessary for at least MY sanity and all of us cruise addicts certainly are not rich or elite, well maybe elite. <GVBG>
Jim

Thanks Jim,but you are so right,cruiselines are more visible targets than cargo ships which I am sure that when they do their "dumping" is at night when no one can see what they are doing and which is really disturbing....and not fair.

[Jim Bragg]

Don't get me wrong, I am not supporting CCL or any cruiseship that dumps waste, just trying to put it into perspective. I am often amazed when the greenpeace type go nuts over a barrel of bilge water being pumped overboard claiming it will take hundreds of years of more to recover when history shows us nature is very good at cleaning itself. Think of all those ships that were sunk this last century during the two world wars! Talk about toxic stuff! Poison gasses, gasoline, fuel oil, ammunition, dead bodies of all kinds of aminals including humans, etc. You name it, it was sunk in our oceans. What about all the atomic waste from explosions underwater and on islands in the Pacific? You get the picture. Yes we should be vigilent about protecting our beautiful oceans but lets not go crazy either.
Jim