_____________________________________________________________________ 1100 15th Street, NW · 11th Floor · Washington, DC 20005 · (202) 783-7400 · www.foe.org 311 California Street · Suite 510 · San Francisco, CA 94104-2607 · (415) 544-0790 November 9, 2010

Kathryn Benz, Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersh eds
Office of Water U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Mailcode: 4504T 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW. Washington, DC 20460 ow-docket@epa.gov

By Electronic Mail & Submission to www.regulations.gov

Re: Clean Water Act Section 312(b): Notice Seeking Stakeholde r Input on Petition and Other Request to Revise the Performance Standards for Mar ine Sanitation Devices; Docket # EPA–HQ–OW –2010–0126

Dear Ms. Benz:

Friends of the Earth (FoE) would like to thank the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for issuing a request for stakeholder input in the Federal Regis ter regarding FoE’s petition to the EPA requesting a revision of the performance standards for Marine Sanitation Devices.

In passing the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) Congress made its overriding goal clear: to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological inte grity of the Nation’s waters.” 1 There can be little doubt that the CWA has been the primary factor in achieving dramatic improvements in the water quality of our Nation’s waterways, even as our economy and population have increased. However, we are still far from having achieve d Congress’ stated goal, and there remain areas in which the EPA must do more to protect th e Nation’s waters. Our petition to the EPA in April 2009 addressed one such area.

Large vessels continue to discharge significant volumes o f pollution and sewage into our coastal waters. Cruise ships, for example, have the potential to generate and discharge as much waste as a small town while operating in sensitive ecosystems. 2 In section 312 of the CWA, Congress specifically recognized the importance of controlling the discharge of sewage from vessels. In promulgating vessel discharge regulations, EPA is require d to design standards within the limits of available technology that prevent the discharge of unt reated or inadequately treated sewage in to navigable waters. 3 More than thirty years have passed since EPA first promu lgated vessel sewage discharge regulations and EPA has not updated the st andards to reflect the dramatic

1 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a).

2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cruise Ship Discharge A ssessment Report 1-1 (2008) [hereinafter 2008 Cruise Ship Assessment].

3 33 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(1).Friends of the Earth

November 9, 2010 Page 2

2 technological advances that have been made in treatm ent technology in the past thirty years. 4 EPA acknowledged, almost nine years ago, that the applicabl e standards for vessel sewage discharges were “developed in 1976 and may no longer be suffic iently stringent in light of available new technologies.” 5 EPA has an obligation, in order to meet the Congressi onally stated goals of the CWA, to amend these standards to reflect t he significant technological advances that
have been achieved.

Friends of the Earth 6 petitioned the EPA to update the vessel sewage discharge st andards promulgated under section 312 of the Clean Water Act and co ntained in 40 C.F.R. § 140 on April 28, 2009. Specifically, Friends of the Earth filed the petition for rulemaking and collateral relief with the EPA Administrator and requested that EPA undertake the following actions: 1) Issue standards under section 312 of the Clean Water Act upda ting the vessel sewage discharge performance standards found in 40 C.F.R. § 140 for Type II Marine Sanitation Devices; and 2) Create strong monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting requirem ents under section 312 to ensure compliance with vessel discharge performance standards.

FoE’s April 2009 petition has been submitted to this docket a nd we would like to incorporate by reference all of the information submitted in that pet ition into these comments. FoE would also like to provide information to EPA in response to the dat a requested in the current Federal Register notice.

FoE Responses to EPA Questions:

1. What existing public or private data sources are available for use in i dentifying, categorizing, and describing the universe of vessels operating on U.S. navigable waters that also use sewage
treatment devices?

• Friends of the Earth Cruise Ship Report Card (available at www.foe.org/cruisereportcard ) contains a database of 11 cruise lines and 113 cruise ships ope rating in U.S. waters and identifies which cruise ships are operating Type II MSDs and those ships that have installed Advanced Wastewater Treatment Systems (AWTS).

• Data gathered by EPA Region 9 regarding the California sta tewide vessel sewage NoDischarge Zone (available at http://www.epa.gov/region9/mediacenter/nodischarge/index .html ).

• Data from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conserv ation’s cruise ship permitting program (available at http://www.dec.state.ak.us/water/cruise_ships/reports.ht m ).

4 See 40 C.F.R. § 140.

5 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cruise Ships White Paper 13 (2000); available at http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/vwd/upload/2004_10_12_oceans_cruise_ships_w hite_paper.pdf

. 6 Friends of the Earth is a public interest, non-profit advoca cy organization, whose mission is to defend the environment and champion a just and healthy world. The or ganization works to stop environmental damage and to protect human health and the planet by reduc ing pollution and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Founded in San Francisco in 1969 by David B rower, Friends of the Earth now maintains its headquarters in Washington, D.C. and its West Coast offi ce in San Francisco and is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest network of grassroots environmental groups, with affiliates in over 77 countries.Friends of the Earth

November 9, 2010 Page 3

3 2. What existing technical information is available on the performance, ef fectiveness and costs of various vessel sewage treatment devices, including performance test ing data?

• Friends of the Earth submitted data to EPA in response to our queries to AWTS manufacturers regarding performance standards for ship sewage treatment systems. Both GE and Hamworthy responded to our requests and the information w e submitted to EPA is
summarized below:

Fecal Coliform Biological Oxygen
Demand Total Suspended Solids

GE Zenon AWTS <2.2 CFU/100mL

(after disinfection) <2 mg/L (typically

non-detect) <1 mg/L (typically nondetect) Hamworthy
AWTS < 2 MPN/100ml (or

below detection limit) n/a <5 mg/l (or below detection limit)

• EPA also produced an economic assessment of installati on of AWTS as a part of the Cruise Ship Discharge Assessment Report. EPA estimates that it would cost $7.09 per passenger to operate and maintain a new AWTS system on a l arge cruise ship. 7 A wide range of advanced wastewater treatment systems are cur rently available, and most Type II MSD systems can be converted into these advanced treatmen t systems. 8 Some AWTS are available as complete modular packages, which can minimiz e the costs of installation. The installation of AWTS on a cruise ship costs roughly between 2 to 10 million dollars per ship. 9 Royal Caribbean International, the second largest cruis e operator in the industry, is investing $100 million to equip their entire fleet with AWTS. 10 Yet, to date, Royal Caribbean has only installed AWTS on 45 percent (10 of 22) of its cruise ships, a nd of the 11 cruise ship companies operating in U.S. waters that we have updated data for, only 55 percent (approximately 62 of 113) have installed AWTS.

Cruise ships travel to and from ports all over the U.S . and have significant impacts on our marine
environments and human health. 11 The current regulatory program for the treatment of s ewage from these and other large vessels is woefully inadequate and has failed to keep up with both the

7 EPA, “Economic and Benefits Analysis of the Final Vesse l General Permit (VGP),” 76-77 (2008);
available at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/vessel_vgp_economicanalysis.pdf

. 8 Available systems include the Hamworthy MBR system, the ROCHEM LPRO system, the ROCHEM Bio-Filt system, the Zenon ZeeWeed MBR system, the Scan ship treatment system and the Hydroxyl CleanSea system. See EPA 2008 Cruise Ship Assessment supra note 2, at 2-13, 14.

9 Charles Q. Choi, Cruise Lines Face More Policing of Wa ste Disposal, New York Times, March 25, 2007, available at http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/travel/25heads.html?pagewanted= print

. 10 Press Release, Royal Caribbean, Royal Caribbean Interna tional Advanced Wastewater Purification Systems (Apr. 14, 2008), available at http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/en_US/pdf/AWP_Updates /RCI_AWP_WebUpdateApr2008.pdf

. 11 Cruise ships travel to ports in Florida, South Carolina , Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, Louisiana, Alabam a, California, Washington, Alaska and
Hawaii and travel in all coastal and Great Lakes wate rs.Friends of the Earth

November 9, 2010 Page 4

4 growth of the industry and the development of sewage trea tment technologies. Federal regulations governing the discharge of sewage effluent from vessels are outdated and must be modernized to incorporate treatment and monitoring technologi es already on the market and utilized by approximately 50 percent of the cruise ships trav elling our waters.

State standards have led the development of these new t echnologies, but a minimum standard requiring the use of these technologies across all U.S. waters and by all cruise lines is crucial. EPA correctly acknowledged, more than ten years ago, th at the applicable “standards were developed in 1976 and may no longer be sufficiently stringen t in light of available new technologies.” 12 Federal law requires the EPA to protect the nation’s waters and such protection necessitates the EPA to update current Type II MSD standar ds by incorporating the best practicable control technology available. Updating Type II MSD regulations to account for available technological improvements and efficiencies i s both warranted and long overdue.

Thank you very much for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me at 415-544-0790
x223 or mkeever@foe.org if you have further questions or require more information regarding
the information we have submitted.

Sincerely,

Marcie Keever Oceans & Vessels Project Director
Friends of the Earth

12 33 C.F.R. § 159.3; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Crui se Ships White Paper 13 (2000).