October 22, 2020
A Federal Judge ruled on Wednesday that Carnival Corporation must certify each of its ships are environmentally compliant at least 30 days before resuming service in the United States, according to a court order.
Judge Patricia Seitz, who is overseeing the U.S. Government’s case against Carnival for environmental issues, said that the company must provide a certification signed by the Company’s Chief Executive Officer (Arnold Donald) as to the status of the items listed below from the Company’s Pause Priorities Plan for such Covered Vessel.
Pollution Prevention Equipment
- Shipboard and shoreside preparations (e.g., equipment purchases, piping reconfigurations) for carrying out the commitment to install food waste digesters on ships within 60 days of return to service;
- Installing the full set of food waste digesters per the January 2020 plan and Court submission;
- Identifying and assessing repairs needed to improve reliable operation of pollution prevention equipment3 and proposing schedules for completion of work, as well as completing repairs based on these identified repair needs;
- Completing all significant repairs4 to pollution prevention equipment;
- Completing Advanced Air Quality System leak repairs;
- Repairing/replacing regular leaking piping/components5 to reduce the volume of bilge water generated; and
- Repairing major pipe system changes to reduce the volume of bilge water generated.
Spare Parts
- Providing a full set of critical environmental spare parts for pollution prevention equipment.
Staffing
- Ensuring a full Table of Personnel or crew complement in deck and technical teams before returning to service; and
- Ensuring a designated engineer for Advanced Air Quality Systems is onboard equipped ships before returning to service.
IT Support and Voyage Planning
- Developing and implementing the new voyage and environmental planning software tool.
Waste Offload Support
- Assessing each waste vendor in accordance with the Company’s internal procedure (Global HESS ENV-1004) for each waste vendor that the Covered vessel returning to U.S. Waters intends to use to dispose of waste during its planned itinerary, and, where required and if feasible, conducting site visits.