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Introducing
Portland Cruise Control
A new community organization comitted to understanding all aspects of cruise tourism in Portland: educating the community, studying the human and environmental impacts, and finding solutions to mitigate the negative consequences of cruise ships.
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March 21, 2025 (Portland, ME) ..... On April 17, the 2025 cruise season in Portland will commence. It will last for 7 months until November 7, 2025. During that time 97 cruise ships will dock in Portland, and 74 of these ships will have installed Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems (EGCS), also known as scrubbers. These devises deceptively reduce the appearance of air emissions by “washing” pollutants into the harbor, a practice that is being banned throughout the world.
Three concerned residents, Matthew Day, Maggy Wolf, and JoAnn Locktov have co-founded Portland Cruise Control. The grassroots volunteer organization was established to address concerns about the environmental and human impacts of cruise ships in Portland, in order to seek solutions. The organization is investigating fuel and scrubber use, air emissions and water pollution from toxic scrubber wash discharge, communication protocols for norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, effective reporting of complaints from excessive noise, air pollution, charter bus emissions, passenger congestion, and financial data to calculate the costs of hosting cruise ships.
According to longtime Portland resident Matthew Day, “the more I learn about cruise ships the more concerned I am about their environmental impact on our city. When we first welcomed cruise ships to our harbor years ago we were told that they would be good for the local environment because they would reduce overall emissions, particularly in comparison to automobiles. Instead, we now know that cruise goers emit eight times the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per day than land-based vacationers.
I also worry about the increasing number of infectious outbreaks on cruise ships, including norovirus, Covid-19, and influenza, and the risks these outbreaks pose to residents, workers and visitors when infected passengers disembark. Current local and CDC reporting procedures around these outbreaks are deeply flawed and the impacts of infectious outbreaks on host ports are just now becoming understood.
Implementing a scrubber wash ban and demanding more transparency in reporting of infectious outbreaks are important first steps to help keep our city clean and healthy. We cannot simply sit back and expect the profit driven, foreign flag flying cruise ship industry, or even the federal government, to protect us from the environmental harms caused by cruise ships."
Maggy Wolf has been concerned about cruise ships since she moved to Portland in 2014. "I spent several years lobbying the city to implement a Climate Action Plan, which they ultimately did in 2020, jointly with South Portland with the adoption of “One Climate Future”. However it has been frustrating that the ever-growing cruise ship industry is not doing its part to help Portland meet its carbon reduction goals. When confronted with this issue, the industry has pointed to its “scrubbers” which actually add to GHG emissions because they require more fuel to operate. As a year-round swimmer at the East End Beach, I was shocked to learn that scrubbers are considered cheat devices because they simply exchange air pollution for water pollution, and release toxic heavy fuel oil pollutants into our beloved Casco Bay."
"I started by asking a lot of questions," says JoAnn Locktov, "and much to my alarm the replies were either incorrect or nonexistent. It is easy for a port community to be reactive to cruise ships, they show up, disembark thousands of passengers, and the city gratefully collects the restricted revenue that is used to support port infrastructucture. But there are great costs to having cruise ships, including devastating air and water pollution. After extensive research, we submitted a Scrubber Wash Discharge Ban proposal to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee. This is a practical way to use the Port Terminal Tariff to prohibit scrubber wash discharge, just like we already prohibit untreated sewage, greywater, and dirty ballast water, while ships are docked. The beauty of the plan is that it puts the responsibility of eliminating the pollution directly onto the cruise ships, where it belongs. At Portland Cruise Control we want to be proactive."
Portland Cruise Control meets monthly, either in person at Hill House, 92 Congress St. or on zoom. The goal of the organization is not only to find solutions to mitigate the environmental damage of cruise ships but to educate the community in all aspects of cruise ship tourism. For more information: portlandcruisecontrolmaine.org.
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