The ECOreport uses Marica Keever’s 2013 Cruise Report Card to evaluate California Cruise Ships: an Environmental Report Card
By Roy L Hales
According to a report released three days ago, Cruise ships dumped more than 1 billion gallons of sewage in the ocean last year, much of it raw or poorly treated. More than 40% of the 162 ships in the 2013 Cruise Report Card“still rely on 30-year-old waste treatment technology, leaving treated sewage with levels of fecal matter, bacteria, heavy metals and other contaminants harmful to aquatic life and people.”
“It’s time for cruise ships to stop using our oceans as a toilet!” said Marcie Keever, author of the Friends of the Earth report.
On Monday, April 22, the California Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) recognized the 12,000 acre Ocotillo Wind Project site, in what the local Quechan tribe refers to as the “Valley of Death,” as a sacred Native American cultural landscape and burial ground. This resolution was passed by a 4-0 vote.
Much to the apparent chagrin of California’s three public utilities companies, residential solar is booming. According to the Vote Solar Initiative, 1,400 megawatts (MW) of PV installations are now operating on the homes or businesses of 134,000 Californians. In a recent study, they conclude that, the benefits to ratepayers in SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E territories will be around $92.2 million a year “by the time the state’s net metering program is fully subscribed at 5% of peak demand.” Two thirds of these installations are in low and median income neighbourhoods.
Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric have become increasingly critical of net metering which, according to a Vote Solar Initiative PRnewswire, “reduces their ability to justify the capital investment infrastructure projects that earn them a guaranteed profit.”
