Pete, many of us believe that pumping overboard does not make the water worse. As an analogy, think about adding a drop of water to a five gallon bucket. Yes, the volume has been increased but to no measurable degree. That is the situation we have with overboard discharge. Doing so does not affect the quality of the water to any measurable degree.
Here's an example. I boat on the Chesapeake. The water meets water quality standards for swimming and is tested regularly where folks swim in the warmer months. Swimming is never restricted except when, rarely, there has been a sewage spill from a water treatment plant. Yup, two days later, after hundreds of thousands or even millions of gallons of raw sewage went into the water, the water is safe to swim in again. So, boats? They just don't matter, a drop in the bucket even if every damn one of us pumped overboard.
Take a ride to Lancaster County, PA, Amish country, in January or February. The Amish farmers spread their accumulated cow manure on their fields, the old-fashioned way of fertilizing for the next year's corn crop. For days, for miles and miles the air is strongly pungent with the odor of decaying cow poop. Yup, it all ends up in the Chesapeake via the Susquehanna River. Now, do you really think that Chesapeake boaters ALL dumping overboard can possibly come close to that? Not even close, a drop in the bucket. So, no, I do not accept the proposition that "every lit bit helps". It does not, not even close.
Here's a rhetorical question. How many boaters, even the scrupulously compliant boater, would not illegally pump overboard having founds themselves unexpectedly with a full tank and no pump-out in sight? My guess is that few of us have not pumped overboard from time-to-time. And, please, no one comment back that, with proper planning, this should not happen because sometimes in boating, even with "propoer planning" plans have a habit of being upset by circumstances impossible to have been foreseen.
Still, I comply. Have I ever been caught unprepared? Maybe.
I agree that it is very difficult to accept and in fact, an intolerable situation. But we, as boaters, need to take the high road. Instead of saying "If Seattle can do it, so can I". We need to take the stand that says "Think of how much worse the water would be if boaters were discharging waste in the water."
I guess it is bad enough that whales and seagulls do it. I am proud to say that I do not.
pete