PORT ANGELES — Celebrity Cruises Inc. has been fined $100,000 for discharging more than half a million gallons of untreated wastewater into the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles and Protection Island, a state agency reports.
The state Department of Ecology said in its Thursday announcement that the cruise ship Mercury violated the state’s water quality standards when it discharged untreated wastewater 10 times over nine days in September and October 2005, according to records kept by Miami-based Celebrity.
The state learned of the discharges during a review of the ship’s records this September.
A total of 542,332 gallons of untreated wastewater were discharged.
The records contradicted a December 2005 letter from Celebrity to Ecology saying the Mercury had not discharged wastewater in Washington during the 2005 cruise season.
Cruise ship wastewater discharges into state waters are banned under an April 2004 agreement among Ecology, the NorthWest CruiseShip Association and the Port of Seattle.
“While Celebrity kept good records and cooperated in sharing this information, all of these city-sized ships must take great caution to adhere to the agreement and avoid illegal discharges in our state’s waters,” Dave Peeler, manager of Ecology’s water quality program, said in a written release.
The wastewater contained mostly untreated sink, shower and laundry water, called gray water, and a small percentage of treated sewage from a Coast Guard-certified marine sanitation device.