| Pollution | 26 Feb 2010 |
| Let's Stop Swimming in Sewage by erik |
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Former West/Rhode Riverkeeper Bob Gallagher recently had a great letter to the editor published in the Capital. Several Waterkeeper groups, including the Federation, have signed on in support of the Attorney General's bills that he references below. Please contact your legislators and ask them to support the bills as well:
Federal regulations regarding vessels with installed toilets have been in effect since 1980. At that time, it became a crime to dump untreated sewage from a boat to the water. The concern then was bacteria pollution. The law eliminated discharge of a dangerous pollutant from an easily controllable source.
The law has an exception for boats that have toilet systems that grind up the waste and kill the bacteria before the waste is pumped overboard. These systems remain legal except in a few designated "no discharge zones."
The 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement called for the elimination of "pollutant discharges from recreational boats." We now understand that pollution from nutrients like nitrogen is the biggest problem facing our rivers and the bay. Sewage from boats, whether treated or untreated, is a highly concentrated form of nitrogen pollution. Pumping even treated boat waste overboard is like dumping fertilizer in the bay.
Attorney General Doug Gansler has recently caused the introduction of legislation that would expand no discharge zones to include all Maryland waters (SB 513/HB 1257). Gansler's bill would require that boats that have these currently exempt "treatment systems" have them pumped out just like the great majority of other boats that store waste in holding tanks.
Less responsible elements of the maritime industry oppose the bill for the reason that boats affected by the legislation contribute only a very small amount to the nitrogen pollution that is suffocating the bay.
With the current state of water quality in the Bay, we need to stop nitrogen pollution from every controllable source. Moreover, why should any of us have to swim or crab near a boat that is discharging "treated" sewage? I support the Attorney General's bill.
Bob Gallagher
