Anchorage Daily News

Federal environmental regulators have published a report they said will help them decide whether the limits on sewage and other wastewater discharges from cruise ships traveling in Alaska waters are stringent enough.

But the report, prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency and published late last week, doesn't recommend taking any particular steps at this point.

Instead, it gives some details on the effectiveness of cruise ships' existing treatment systems in removing pollutants and, theoretically, how those discharges could be reduced in the future.

An EPA spokeswoman said Tuesday that it's too early to say what the agency will do with the report's findings.

The agency says it is finalizing additional research on the effectiveness of the cruise ships' sewage treatment systems. The agency plans to publish those findings later this year.

State officials said they don't expect any major changes soon. "This report alone doesn't include anything that would make us change our (cruise ship discharge) permit," said Denise Koch, the cruise ship program manager for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Recently, the cruise industry has complained that the state's new rules for water discharges from cruise ships, prompted by a voter initiative passed in 2006, are too stringent. Cruise line critics in Southeast Alaska disagree and accuse the companies of dragging their feet in dealing with their discharges. The cruise lines have until 2010 to comply with the new rules, but some ships had problems last summer complying with the state's interim pollution limits, which were more lenient.

The industry's main compliance problem is the cruise ships' discharges of ammonia, a component of urine, and two heavy metals -- copper and zinc. The cruise lines say they don't have adequate technology to scrub out the amount of those metals required under the state's new rules. The water treatment systems currently used on the cruise ships only remove 37 percent to 50 percent of metals in their dissolved form, according to EPA's report.

At this point, EPA doesn't appear to be reviewing any changes in the pollutant standards for metals or ammonia for cruise ships, Koch said.

She said the state believes that the most likely change EPA is contemplating involves revising its standards for nutrient pollutants, found in sewage.

Find Elizabeth Bluemink online at adn.com/contact/ebluemink or call 257-4317.

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