Polluting cruise ship in Portland was same ship which dragged a whale into NY port
MOUNT DESERT, May 17, 2025 - The cruise ship which garnered protest in Portland, Maine, for its unfettered pollution last week in Casco Bay was the same ship in May 2024 which struck and killed an endangered whale and dragged it into the East River in New York, according to press reports.
The QSJ failed to conduct a proper search of the ship’s name, MSC Meraviglia, as any first-year journalism intern would have been taught to do.
A loyal reader made the connection online, however, and alerted me.
The Washington Post reported May 9, 2024, “The MSC Meraviglia was returning Saturday from a Bermuda cruise when it sailed into the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with the 44-foot-long sei whale affixed to its front. MSC, a Geneva-based cruise line, confirmed the incident ‘with deep regret’ in a statement and said it had immediately notified authorities. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement is investigating.”
Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said voluntarily reducing vessel speeds can help avoid run-ins. However, she said, cruise ships and large tankers prefer to move briskly because they are on tight schedules.
The QSJ reported yesterday that MSC Meraviglia, without any passengers, was docked in Portland for five days last week for repairs and spewed toxic air and water pollution until citizens were successful in persuading city officials to intervene and compel the ship to burn a less toxic fuel.
“The 19-deck ship was not only obtrusive, it was also noxious, as its heavy exhaust and scrubber wash soon filled the pristine harbor in Casco Bay,” stated JoAnn Locktov, co-founder of Portland Cruise Control in a press release. The light pollution from the ship also lit up the harbor. See photo below by Maggy Wolf.
Because ships typically do not stay overnight here, residents were not accustomed to the harbor being lit up. “That ship was ablaze every single night, and you saw the air, the emissions that were coming out at night,” Locktov said. “They only had crew on board. They did not have 5000 passengers,”
This smoke is too thick and dark colored to be the legal 1,000ppm that is required within 200 miles of the US coast.
It looks like it is burning 5000ppm HFO.
If so, you’re looking at 170,000 idling semi trucks worth of Sulfur dioxide each burning one gallon of 15ppm on land diesel. Every hour. For 6 days. The Meraviglia burns 600 gallons per hour at anchor. So during the 6 day visit they emitted the equivalent sulfur dioxide as if they burnt 10 million gallons of 15ppm on land diesel. That much SO2 had to have affected people in Portland. Especially asthmatics. It only takes ⅓ of 1ppm to kick off an asthma attack. The number of reports may be public info.
Thank you Joann for exposing the fatally flawed cruise industry.
Thanks Jim for your years of pointing out the polluting
and whale killing dangers of cruise ships ! Thank you Joann for confirming Jim’s tireless advocacy for cruise to change their speed and routes in areas that endanger whales. One would hope these killer cruise ships and their human and maritime victims would be a continuous major news story.
Sadly, they are not. The cruise ship industry has a lobbying and media machine like MAGA/ Trump.