Twenty House members from California including much of the Bay Area’s delegation sent a letter yesterday to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the EPA to let California protect its waters and the public from harmful sewage and pollution discharges from large ships.

California passed a Clean Coast Act in 2005 that bans discharge of sewage, polluted graywater and other harmful substances from cruise and large ocean-going ships in all state waters. But given how that interacts with federal law, California in 2006 filed a 96-page application seeking authority to implement the plan; the EPA still hasn’t acted on it.

“Nearly 1.5 million passengers departed on cruise ships in California’s waters last year, and with these numbers, as well as cruise ship sizes, on the rise, the threat to our oceans from ship discharges continues to grow,” the lawmakers wrote. “Cruise ships and other large ocean-going vessels produce enormous volumes of sewage that can be dumped with minimal treatment into California’s waters … just three nautical miles from shore. EPA’s own testing has demonstrated that treatment in many cases still leaves large volumes of pollutants and pathogens in the ships’ discharge.”

Among the letters signers are representatives Barbara Lee, D-Oakland; Pete Stark, D-Fremont; Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton; Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough; Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto; Mike Honda, D-San Jose; Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose; and Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, was the lone Republican to sign the letter.