Marinette Boat Forum

I was a Boarding Officer in the US Coast Guard I am very much aware of the regs and their description. Most of the boating public are pleasure boats and only equipped with holding tanks or portable toilets. Most commercial vessels including the US Coast Guard have the capabilities to hold septic, mix, treat and discharge in water including inland rivers. How do I know this, I was on a Coast Cutter Greenbrier on the lower Mississippi we held sewage in a tank with a mixer and aeration then drained to another tank treated with a drip bleach line then discharged in the river. So it’s very simple to follow the Federal Laws to either pump out at a Marina or have on board the capabilities to store, treat and discharge where legal to do so.

Was just alluding to the word "generally" which is bureaucratically vague. Aside from that, you must have had some interesting experiences working the busy maritime environment of the lower Miss. I've seen the boat traffic there and it's sometimes like I-4985 at rush hour around here.

I was stationed in Natchez , MS we would go down to Baton Rouge ,LA up the Black River and then up the Red River to Shreveport, LA. Yes the further you went south the more commercial traffic there would be, very little pleasure craft. The cutter I was on at the time didn’t go any further south than Baton Rouge, another cutter from New Orleans would patrol up to Baton Rouge.