Sewage concerns shake sound

[unhappycamper]

A Hy-Line ferry left Hyannis last week. The company doesn't treat sewage it dumps into the sound. (Vincent DeWitt for the Boston Globe)


Sewage concerns shake sound
By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff | September 23, 2007

In their long, hard campaign against development of an offshore wind farm, defenders of Nantucket Sound have often characterized their beloved water body as "pristine." Former governor Mitt Romney dubbed the sound a "national treasure."

But the ferry boat operators who are among the leading opponents of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound have been flushing their toilets in it.

Nantucket Sound serves as a veritable outhouse for the 3 million people who take ferries back and forth from Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket every year. The Steamship Authority treats the waste before dumping it, but Hy-Line Cruises does not.

The practice is legal because the ferries release the waste once they are in federal waters, 3 miles offshore.

Moses Calouro, who runs Maritime Information Systems in Orleans and Rhode Island, which handles computer consulting for the shipping industry, believes ferries should pump the waste into onshore sewage lines, rather than dumping it in the sound.

"I think ferries should pump because they dock every night - as opposed to a tanker, which goes thousands of miles offshore and it's logistically not possible," Calouro said. "I mean, why not?"


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/23/sewage_concerns_shake_sound/