Cruise ship trash and waste won’t be offloaded on the Coast. Here’s where it’s going.
Landing a cruise line for the Port of Gulfport remains a possibility now that trash disposal concerns have been resolved for three cruise ships temporarily docking here.
Two ships from Carnival Cruise Line and one from Royal Caribbean are being hosted by the Port of Gulfport during the new coronavirus pandemic.
The Harrison County Utility Authority had considered rejecting trash the big ships generate while docked over coronavirus concerns. However, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs has issued a letter saying there is no concern over coronavirus contamination.
Also, the cruise lines have contracted with a biohazard company called Stericycle to take not only food and medical waste, which they were already doing, but also the trash. The ships are homeported here over a shortage of dock space after COVID-19 resulted in suspension of operations for all major cruise lines.
The port’s executive director, Jonathan Daniels, hopes a carrier will homeport in Gulfport once the health crisis is over.
“We’ve shown that, ultimately, we have the type of facility and community that can accommodate a cruise line,” he said Friday afternoon.
Mayor Billy Hewes, who wants to see a cruise line homeported in Gulfport as the city builds its tourism base, says people on social media, particularly Facebook, are spreading false rumors about the ships.
“There is a social media virus that is spreading the rumor these ships are here because of quarantine and, in fact, they are not contaminated and are here because of an industry-wide shutdown,” Hewes said. “We’re glad to have the opportunity to host them and show them what our community has to offer.”
Most of the trash from the ships, he said, is recycled, or incinerated at sea and buried as ash.
Daniels could not offer an estimate on the volume of ash and garbage because that depends on how much time the vessels spend at sea, where the vessels also dispose of garbage in accordance with federal law and regulations.
Carnival Cruise Line, however, has been an offender of environmental regulations and paid hefty fines as a result.
Carnival’s history did not come up at a Utility Authority meeting Thursday. Instead, Supervisor Marlin Ladner said he was worried about how little is known or understood regarding transmission of the new coronavirus. He said the U.S. economy is essentially shutting down over the virus to protect citizens and Harrison County needs to do the same.
“If there’s a potential problem with contaminating our citizens, I want it stopped,” Ladner said. After the meeting, Daniels secured the letter from Dobbs to allay concerns.
Crew members have been aboard the ships for the last 28 days with no COVID-19 cases, while the incubation period for COVID-19 has been established at up to 14 days. Officials said crew members have been more worried about being exposed to the virus if they leave the ships, but they are confined onboard.
One of the ships at the state port, the Carnival Valor, had a passenger on its last cruise who has since tested positive for COVID-19. Only crew members were aboard the Carnival ships when they arrived at the port.
The Royal Caribbean also on Saturday emailed customers who had been on Majesty of the Seas to say that two people on the Feb. 29 cruise have since tested positive. The ship now docked offshore also has only crew aboard, but will be coming in for resupply.
The Carnival Valor headed offshore Thursday but will be back in port Monday.
About 2,800 crew members have been ordered to remain aboard the ships and are not being allowed ashore. Extra security has been added since two crew members left the Carnival Valor on Sunday.
This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 1:36 PM.
