pro or con as to installing a garbage disposal.

Here's the problem as it's been explained by our Puget Sound and Hood
Canal environment gurus.  Whether you agree with it or care is another
matter.  Food matter dumped overboard, either in "chunks" or in a slurry
from a garbage disposal, does not end up feeding the crabs as most of us
tend to believe, but ends up feeding the algae.  The algae use oxygen in
the water.  The greater the algae population, the greater the oxygen
depletion, and the harder it is on the fish, crabs, shrimp, and other
critters.  This may not pose a huge problem in the open ocean where
currents move the water around a lot, but in deep, partly landlocked
bodies of water like Hood Canal and south Puget Sound in Washington,
where the underwater topography greatly inhibits the tidal exchange of
water, the oxygen depletion problem has become very serious in recent
years (for a whole lot of reasons, not just because boaters are dumping
food into the water).

Which is why I've seen a lot of publications and reports urging boaters
in this area not to send food waste (banana peels, apple cores, that
uneaten rice dish nobody liked at dinner) overboard.  You could argue,
what's one apple core in a big body of water like Puget Sound?  On one
side of the coin, it's a valid argument.  Compared to the overall volume
of "stuff' that ends up in these waters, one apple core is a drop in the
bucket  On the other hand, it's one more apple core than was there
before, and the algae have one more apple core to feed on and grow.

If you're talking about installing a garbage disposal to slurry food
waste and send it to your holding tank, that's another matter.  In
theory, I would think it's a fine idea. You don't put the garbage into
the water, but put it into something that (in theory) will end up going
through a shoreside treatment plant.  You also don't fill up your
garbage can with food waste which could get smelly on a longer cruise.
But from a practical standpoint, you will fill up your holding tank that
much faster, and that could become its own problem on a longer cruise.
Plus as Peggie points out, this could cause some really unpleasant
problems should the system go awry.

I would think something like a trash compactor that can handle food
waste (if there is such a thing that's practical for installation and
use on a boat) would perhaps be a wiser investment.

C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington

So why do the crabs eat the meat in my nets or the fishermen's crab pots? I
guess they only eat the stuff when it's presented in a manner suitable to
them, not just dumped overboard.

So much for the environmental "gurus". It's amazing what they "explain" when
anyone can see in plain sight crabs will eat meat in the water. OTOH, I
never saw one eating asparagus.

Keith

Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Faure, Marin" marin.faure@boeing.com