Cruise ships visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park are pouring contaminated water and exhaust chemicals into the ocean, risking the health of the world’s biggest and best known reef system, local stakeholders have said.
The Great Barrier Reef represents about 10% of all known coral reefs worldwide. It is also home to a huge array of sea creatures, algae and plants. UNESCO-listed, the park covers 343,966 km2 off the Queensland coast and, according to the Park Authority brings in more than $6.4 billion each year to the Australian economy, providing around 64,000 full-time jobs, even though its use for marine tourism and leisure, fishing, shipping, and scientific research is regulated.
16.8 million litres of contaminated sea water released per day
But, those regulations, drawn up half a century ago, are not strict enough or fit for purpose in today’s era of supersized cruise ships, campaigners say. A spokesperson for the Whitsunday Conservation Council (WCC) told Whitsunday News that “an average size cruise ship (approximately 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew) generates around 680,000 litres of grey water (from kitchens, laundries and guest/staff rooms) every single day.” Cruise ships “can generally only store this grey water for an average of 56 hours due to limited holding capacity” the WCC added, which “suggests huge amounts of contaminated water are being discharged directly into the marine park.”
What’s more, around 700,000 litres of “highly contaminated acidic seawater, containing high levels of sulphur, nitrates and heavy metals, is created every hour” from the exhaust-cleaning effluent, the WCC noted. Exhaust-scrubbing, a process designed to keep sulphur out of the atmosphere, dumps the waste directly into the sea. “That’s 16.8 million litres per day, just from one cruise ship” the WCC pointed out.
Clean up your act
It’s important to point out that the confirmed pollution data is not available but local boat rental operator and marine advisory committee member, Trevor Rees, fears the pollution’s harmful effects. “We also have no idea what impact these discharges are having on our water quality and wildlife,” he told The Guardian, “but we do know it can’t be good, based on other studies from around the world.”
Tony Fontes, WCC president, has insisted campaigners are not calling for all cruise ship activity to cease. “No one is suggesting we ban the cruise ship industry, we just want them to clean up their act. And, believe it or not, this can be done fairly easily,” he said. WCC suggestions include treating wastewater and sewage before it is pumped out, not releasing it until cruise ships are out of the park, and carbon offsetting as potential ways forward.
But park authorities, whose number one mission is to protect it, said in a statement “strict regulations” are already in place and that they support “ecologically sustainable cruise ship operations in the marine park.” They have issued over 100 cruise operator licences over the last five years.
