Gould 0738 wrote:


A commercial ship or a warship is involved in essential activities. Even *if*
they pollute 1000 times as much as a recreational boater, it's only because
steps have been taken to reduce to that from 10,000 times.

Won't speak for waships because I don't work on them but as far as
freighters, containerships, and tankers are concerned we discharge far
less than the average Bayliner.

Gray funnel liners (government owned, civilian crewed, ships of the
Ready Reserve Fleet and Military Sealift Command) are "publicly owned
vessels" and as such are, like warships, technically exempt from the
laws and requirements imposed on civil shipping but in fact follow
exactly the same practices as other US flagged civil shipping. Just
because we might not get fined or jailed for pollution doesn't mean we
pollute ...

We do not pump bilges overboard within 12 miles of the coast, all bilge
water is passed through a 15 ppm oily water separator or held for
discharge ashore to a treatment facility.

On tankers we do not even let rainwater go over the side in a loading or
discharge port, along with bilge water it is collected in a slop tank
and discharged ashore.

A modern commercial vessel is cleaner than practically any pleasure
vessel afloat. There are more oil slicks passing through my marina in a
week than the Port of Seattle freight and oil terminals see in years.

Rick