Sei Fuori di testa?
In the game of “my boat is bigger than your boat”, cruise ship companies have truly come up with some gargantuan concepts. Ships carrying over 5000 people (nearly double the capacity of most cruise ships now docking in Key West) are trying to make their way into our harbor.
They’re out there on the other side of the reef; problem is they can’t get in because the channel is too narrow. As some in the community scramble to figure out how to accomplish the widening of the Main Ship Channel, some unexpected words have come from across the Atlantic – from Italy, Venice to be precise. “Sei fuori de testa?’ translates more or less to “Are you off your rocker?”
An organization opposed to gigantic ships in Venice, “Comitato No Grandi Navi” (No Big Ships) joined forces with the Key West Committee for Responsible Tourism last week. As Venice desperately tries to keep the biggest ships out, it seems incredible that we would try to bring them in.
As it turns out Venice, one of the world’s marvels, had no need to widen it’s channel. It’s plenty wide enough and as a result Venetians are literally walled in by enormous cruise ships, four or five times the height of St. Mark’s Cathedral. “These monsters obscure us,” said Matteo Casini, a professor of history who compared the ships to alien creatures. NPR correspondent Sylvia Poggioli reports, “Six ships docking at the lagoon terminal can disgorge in one day more than half the city’s population of 55,000.” The joint resolution signed in Venice and in Key West lists the various nuisances created by those huge ships in small historic harbors (overcrowding, excessive turbidity, water and air pollution, to list a few) Unlike Venice, Key West is protected by its coral reef and its narrow channel – WE have a choice. And Venice opens a window into our possible future.
An interesting lesson learned from the Venice experience is that under maritime law, once the ships can physically come into a port there may be no keeping them out. Under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998, a US port operator can’t simply turn ships away.
In Juneau, Alaska voters pushed through a referendum restricting the number of cruise ship port calls by raising disembarkation fees. Carnival Cruise lines and the Alaska Cruise Association sued and forced a settlement. Under federal law, passenger disembarkation fees are limited to fair compensation for the cruise ship’s local impact and the money collected can only be used to provide services to the cruise ship industry and its passengers.
In Venice the anti-gargantuan-ship group has mobilized to put pressure on the Italian government to limit the use of the port by gigantic cruise ships. They organized a symbolic blockade in which hundreds of people in small vessels filled the canal waving banners with the words “No Navi Grandi!” [No Big Ships!]
So before we widen the channel we should probably be really sure we would fancy a Venice scenario; there will be no turning back.
“We do not need a study to know that cruise ships are degrading the environment and character of Key West,” says former Monroe County Mayor Shirley Freeman, “Hordes of cruise ship passengers discourage higher income tourists who stay days and weeks and benefit the economy many times more.”
A study completed in 2005 by Thomas J. Murray regarding the impact of cruise ships on the Key West community showed that, at that time, tourists from cruise ships spent an average of $32/trip while other visitors spent about $446/trip. This includes meals, hotel rooms, charter fishing, diving, sightseeing, etc.; many activities that cruise ship passengers, who the study says spend an average of 3 hours on the island, don’t have any need for or time to do.
But Jennifer Hulse, attorney and spokesperson for the ‘Support The Study’ PAC disagrees. She claimed during a Key West Citizen interview back in May that the study “would be an extremely detailed analysis of nearly every impact channel widening would have on the island: Environmental, social issues, quality of life and legal issues. It’s a wealth of information.”
That sounds like the kind of study we would want. Unfortunately, it is not what the Army Corp study is designed to do. Under federal guidelines a feasibility study is a tool to help the US Congress choose, from among many different projects, the ones that are the most important for US maritime interests. Last week we published a detailed statement written by Eric Bush, Chief of Planning and Policy Division, USACE Jacksonville. Bush made it clear that the study would have little to do with the ins and outs of the local economy.
In preparation for this article we reviewed feasibility studies for other harbors, like the Port Everglades study issued in June 2013, to get a better idea of what a typical channel dredging feasibility study looks like. In keeping with Mr. Bush’s explanation, those reports contained no local economic ‘studies’ to speak of.
This week we turn to the “social impacts” studies described in the Referendum.
The Principals and Guidelines that govern USACE feasibility studies leave “social effects” as an option. And there is a simple reason why this “option” will likely not be taken. Initially, the feasibility study was projected to cost nearly $6 Million, but because of budget reductions, the study has since been capped at $3 Million. Social impacts are not a priority for US Congress when it comes to Federal Water Projects.
“With respect to social impacts,” says Bush, “I do not envision that the feasibility study would go into much detail on all of the secondary social impacts… It could certainly be done, but the overall intent of establishing the scope of a USACE navigation project feasibility study is to focus study funds on evaluating those things within Corp purview for supporting an investment recommendation to Congress.”
“If the local government agreed those studies were important; those studies could still be performed (probably without federal cost-sharing), to support the overall feasibility study.”
Unbeknownst to them and based on a complete misunderstanding of what a USACE feasibility study is meant to achieve under federal guidelines, Key Westers may end up sending a message to Washington that they support the reversal of the ban on dredging in the Sanctuary. Communities that sponsor such studies usually understand that they’ve agreed to enter into a competitive process that pits their project against those of other communities. Should we really act so casual about $3 Million of taxpayer money? “It’s Just A Study!” We sound like a 17-year old girl who wants her daddy to buy her a $3,000 prom dress but still hasn’t decided if she really wants to go to the prom.
Dredging in the Sanctuary appears to be the ‘elephant in the room’ that pro-study proponents don’t want to see or talk about. If the referendum passes, a study will not provide an in-depth analysis of our local economic or social impact issues, but what it will do is give the false impression that locals support the reversal of the ban on dredging in the Sanctuary, which would help lobbyists convince lawmakers to actually lift that ban [a prerequisite to the USACE even requesting funding for a feasibility study].
In the coming week we will examine whether or not the referendum language is perhaps so misleading that it would render the referendum invalid.
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What follows is the referendum question that will appear on the October 1st ballot:
“Shall the city of Key West request that the Army Corp of Engineers conduct a comprehensive feasibility study, at no monetary cost to the city, to determine the environmental, economic and social impacts of widening the Key West Main Ship Channel for use by modern and longer cruise ships while also addressing navigational safety?”
It was said again, at the Chamber of Commerce’s PAC forum at the Westin resort, even if the channel is dredged wider, the super (mega) cruise ships will never be able to get into Key West. The cruise ship huggers want the channel dredged wider so new, longer and larger, but not the mega cruise ships, can get into Key West. What Robin Lockwood, speaking for the Chamber’s PAC last night, called the super green clean cruise ships, which will replace the dirtiest cruises ships in the industry now calling on Key West, which have been calling on Key West for years, and will continue to call on Key West until the study is done and the channel is widened, which, it was agreed by all sides last night, will take 20 years to complete, if it ever is completed. Looks to me, based on the Chamber’s own “expert” last night, that Key West has a far more pressing need than a channel widening study referendum. Looks to me Key West needs to use the magic wand none of the speakers last night, pro or con study, said they were willing to use; a magic wand that could make cruise ships go away altogether from Key West. After the meeting, someone told me he had heard Lockwood tell someone he made a mistake saying that about the cruise ships now calling on Key West being the dirtiest cruise ships. I disagree. Lockwood was dead on saying it; the truth needed to be told and who better to tell it than the speak for the Chamber which should be hollering the loudest about stopping the dirtiest cruise ships from calling on Key West. As should Mayor Cates, and the six city commissioners. As should every person living in Key West. Thank you Dr. Lockwood, for telling us the truth about the cruise ships now calling on Key West. You did your duty..
Another part of the Pro-Dredge lie is that the dirtiest ships will STOP COMING if and when we dredge the channel. There is no agreement that the “clean and green” ships will replace the current crop. We will have BOTH!
The Carnival Magic and Breeze, which carry 5000 passengers and crew are only two-years-old. They will likely continue calling for 15 – 20 more years and they do not have advanced wastewater treatment – the are dirty polluters!
Finally, as to what constitutes a “Mega-Ship” — it is anything over 100,000 tons. We already have them now, including the above mentioned 1000 = footers. The Pro-Dredge lobby wants to limit the term to only the Oasis class, so they can claim we don’t get the big ones. The RCCL Freedom Class (which according to the ACE is what the dredging is all about) is over 1100 feet long and used to be the largest ship in the world.
Since the Recon Report, the Quantum Class, an even larger monstrosity than the Freedom is preparing to sail. The dredging will accommodate that behemoth, too.
Amen, and thanks for additional info. Re maritime law and US law maybe getting in the way of KW, if it has a conscience and a spine, just saying NO to the dirty cruise ships, the city could stop servicing cruise ships which come to Key West. No food. No water. No fuel. No police. No paying Ed Swift to run his conch trains out to the outer mole pier and back. I told Naja after the Chamber forum last night that I’d love to be a city attorney trying that case in federal court. I’d love to hear a federal judge tell me that my client, Key West, cannot ban dirty cruise ships from Key West because my client does not wish any longer to be an accomplice in polluting the ocean and killing what’s left of the Florida Keys reef. I would love to hear the federal judge say he/she will be the dirty ships’ accomplice by forcing, in the name of USA, Key west to keep receiving the sea and reef killers. Imagine the fun the TV news and Internet would have with that case.
How this referendum looks to me, many people have made up their minds to vote against, many have made up their minds to vote for, some are undecided, some are not yet even interested. Looks to me the way to try to reach the undecideds and not yet interesteds, and even the for the referendums, or some of them, is to lay out in plain view just how vile the cruise ships are already calling on Key West. The referendum is not about a study, it is not about dredging the channel wider. It is about cruise ships calling on Key West. So, let’s all see what those cruise ships really are; let’s see what our city is in bed with, and has been in bed with for many years, and it knows what it’s in bed with, and, sadly, we citizens are in bed with it too.