From the comfort of cruise ships, a typical trip to Alaska offers magnificent views of glaciers and untamed national parks, and visits to quaint seaside towns. For years, these draws have made cruises to Alaska\u00a0the most booked US holiday.
\nBut the journey to those pristine areas, which involves sailing along Canada\u2019s west coast for two or three days, is leaving behind a trail of toxic waste, including within marine protected areas (MPAs), according to new research.
\nMore than 31bn litres (8.5bn US gallons) a year of pollution is estimated to be discharged off the west coast of Canada by cruise ships on their way to and from Alaska, according to a\u00a0report\u00a0by the environmental organisations Stand.earth and West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL).
\n\u201cThere\u2019s this perverse incentive to treat Canada like a toilet bowl,\u201d says Anna Barford, Canada shipping campaigner at Stand.earth. \u201cThey\u2019re just using us like a highway and tossing stuff left, right and centre.\u201d
\nAcross Canada\u2019s 151,019 mile (243,042km) coastline, ships generate 147bn litres of harmful waste each year, equivalent to 59,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a March 2022\u00a0report by WWF-Canada. Based on data from more than 5,000 vessels, the report found cruise ships were the largest polluters, despite making up only 2% of the marine traffic analysed.
\nCruise ship pollution includes large volumes of toxic sewage from toilets, greywater from sinks, showers and laundries, and\u00a0bilge water\u00a0\u2013 the oily liquid that collects at the lowest part of a ship. By far the largest source of pollution identified in the WWF report was from so-called scrubbers \u2013 devices installed to remove exhaust gases such as sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide, as well as particulates, from the heavy bunker oil used as marine fuel. The scrubbers create an acidic wastewater containing a cocktail of chemicals.
\nOn a one-week trip to\u00a0Alaska\u00a0and back along the Canadian coast, a cruise ship will generate nearly 200m litres of waste from scrubbers, according to the Stand.earth and WCEL report. While ships can decide whether to discharge at sea or within a port, most waste from scrubbers is dumped as it is generated.
\nGlobally, cruise ships have a\u00a0patchy record\u00a0of maintaining environmental regulations, including\u00a0within Alaska, but the Pacific waters off the coast of British Columbia are particularly polluted. This is due to the many cruise ships but also because Canada\u2019s federal dumping regulations are\u00a0less stringent than the US laws, according to Michael Bissonnette, a lawyer from WCEL, particularly compared with regulations in Washington and Alaska \u2013 the two US states at each end of Canada\u2019s west coast.
\nIn Washington, more than\u00a06,000 sq km\u00a0(2,300 sq miles) of ocean habitat is protected in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, near the Canadian border, and now classified as a\u00a0no-discharge zone. Alaska requires cruise ships to apply for and receive permission to discharge sewage and greywater.
\nThese regulations encourage ships \u201cto hold on to their waste when they\u2019re in American waters and then to dump it when they\u2019re in Canadian waters\u201d, Bissonnette says.
\nIn Canadian waters, untreated sewage from cruise ships can legally be dumped outside a 12-nautical mile limit under\u00a0vessel pollution regulations,\u00a0which can often\u2002overlap into critical habitats. Meanwhile, treated sewage \u2013 which includes the waste from toilets and greywater from sinks and laundries \u2013 can be discharged three nautical miles from shore.
\nSigrid Kuehnemund, vice-president of wildlife and industry at WWF-Canada, says that while each federal MPA has its own regulations, in Canada very few prohibit operational waste discharges \u2013 all the waste that accumulates onboard when ships are running. \u201cThe regulations that are protecting MPAs at the moment sort of give the shipping industry a free pass, and there aren\u2019t clear regulations that would restrict dumping within those boundaries.\u201d
\nThere are efforts under way to tighten pollution rules. In April, on the eve of the new cruise ship season, the federal government department Transport Canada announced new\u00a0measures to limit discharges\u00a0of greywater and sewage from cruise ships operating in Canadian waters.
\nHowever, while welcome, the move is not enough, Bissonnette says, noting that the measures are voluntary and do not apply to scrubbers.
\nWhen released into the ocean, the wide array of toxic substances pose a significant threat to aquatic wildlife, and the habitat and food webs on which they depend, including threatened populations of sea otters and orcas that live off British Columbia\u2019s coast.
\nAbout 10% of scrubber washwater discharged from ships off British Columbia occurred\u00a0within critical habitats of orcas, according to an analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation. Of particular alarm, says Kuehnemund,\u00a0is the threat to wildlife in Scott Islands marine national park, a cluster of five islands off the north-western tip of Vancouver Island. This\u00a0protected area\u00a0is subject to the highest amount of pollution from cruise ship dumping, according to WWF\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Lying on a busy route for cruise ships, the park holds some of the largest rookeries of Steller sea lions in the world. Each spring, more than 1 million seabirds \u2013 including 90% of Canada\u2019s tufted puffins and half of the world\u2019s Cassin\u2019s auklets \u2013 breed on the island\u2019s cliffs. Kuehnemund describes the area as \u201ca biodiversity hotspot\u201d.
\nThere is fear in some coastal communities that as cruise ship traffic increases, so too will the threat to their waters. Popular port destinations including\u00a0Victoria\u00a0and\u2002Seattle\u00a0have seen protests at the return of cruise ships after the lifting of pandemic restrictions.
\nThe fishing communities of south-east Alaska also complain of dumped waste in their waters bordering Canada, fearing that critical fish species are being exposed to harmful substances.<\/p>\n