LETTER TO THE EDITOR / Cruise ships
John Hobbins, Key West
I have been swimming the same route at Fort Zachary Taylor for years. Each year the clarity of the water along the way has dropped to where I cannot see my usual friends – the parrotfish, two barracudas that join me for a bit, and the schools of beautiful multicolored small fish. I hope the fish are still there, but I just can’t see them.
One day three years ago I smelled and tasted something acrid in the water, probably a petroleum product with the word ending in “ine, ane or ene” (like gasoline etc). I biked down to the harbor to see whether a cruise ship was in town and noted only one, a Carnival line behemoth. Weeks later the same unpleasant experience was again linked to the same ship. While swimming early this year a similar petroleum aura prompted another bike ride to the dock. This time another Carnival ship was there. Even though my little blinded study had no statistical teeth, I suspected strongly that acrid water = the Carnival cruise line.
For the last few weeks of COVID 19 restrictions, I have added to my exercise regimen a bike trip circling the island. The water is now remarkably clear, even in stretches that are choppy during a south wind. What is different? Well, many things, such as fewer people on the water engaged in silt-stirring activities such as jet skis, but my bet is on the absence of the mother of all silt-stirrers: cruise ships.
In 2019, 30 million people around the world chose to spend their vacations on cruise ships. Why? Because cruise packages are relatively cheap, the service usually is quite good, the entertainment is often excellent, and there is an abundance of food. And one gets to travel to exotic places. However, there are some hidden downsides. Even though ships will offer yoga, exercise classes, and even some sports, there is little incentive to compete with 3000 other passengers for a timeslot. Most cruise vacationers with whom I have talked focus mostly on the food – lots of it. I could not find stats on the average weight gain per week on a cruise, but there must be a major imbalance between the calories in and calories out (que here to the 35% obesity rate in the USA).
What about the wonderful opportunity to see exotic places? Well, a few hours in any seaport does not give the traveler a sense of what an entire island has to offer or, importantly, about the richness of its culture. Kudos to the Konk Train and the Hemingway house and some of the local restaurants, but my impression is that our cruise ship visitors remain clustered in lower Duval Street, often purchasing items from chain or factory stores and less often from stores featuring locally made products.
While these soft negatives may not matter to many cruise travelers, now there is one downside that certainly should –one that could kill the industry. Cruise ships are potential Petri dishes for infectious disease. Today, there are 30 ships out on the water, many with multiple COVID infected passengers, looking for a place where local authorities will allow them to dock. You do not want to ask those passengers whether they are having an awesome Disney-like day.
Cruise ships have been causing harm to the planet for years. They are poorly regulated, world-class polluters. Here are a few examples:
- Existing laws say that cruise ships cannot dump raw sewage within 3 miles of land but can disperse treated sewage anywhere. Each passenger generates about 10 gallons of sewage so a 3000-passenger ship can disperse 30,000 gallons of raw (black water) sewage into the ocean.
- Each ship can generate 1 million gallons of water waste from sinks, laundries, and baths (graywater) which can negatively affect marine life.
- Each ship can excrete between 7000 and 25000 gallons of oily bilge water (probably the Fort Zach culprit).
- Cruise ships are plastic polluters. Often refuse is incinerated but some plastic will slip through to join the megatons of plastic that has found its way to even remote parts of the planet.
- Cruise ships pollute the air. While burning low-grade fuel the smokestack of one ship can produce the exhaust equivalent of 12,000 cars on the road. This toxic air-born pollutant contains not only the usual toxins, but also mercury, a subtle pathogen that finds its way in high concentration into the flesh our most coveted Key West fish (grouper, swordfish, tuna, tile fish, and cobia).
The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 but cruise ships were held to a much lower standard than land-based operations. Nevertheless, in 2016 Princess lines paid $40 million fine for illegal dumping and in 2019 Carnival cruises paid $20 million for polluting and for attempts to cover this up. The companies also have not been forthright in other situations. The last transgression occurred when Norwegian cruise lines responded slowly to COVID 19 threat which early on resulted in the highest outbreak of the virus in the world (second only to China). The Norwegian Cruise line misinformed customers regarding the virus while continuing to book them for trips.
So, cruise ships pollute in myriad ways, can harm marine life, can be dangerous for customers and can even spoil a morning swim.
Does the industry help our economy? Cruise ship defenders say it has a positive effect- one of its most redeeming features. However, for many reasons they generate little or no tax money for the USA. 70% of the industry is dominated by three companies, all incorporated outside this country (carnival in Panama, Norwegian in Bermuda, Royal Caribbean in Liberia) and most employees are from Europe, the Caribbean islands, and the Philippines. I am told that the Trump administration is considering bailing them out but of all the businesses needing the most help in this terrible crisis, the cruise ship industry does not belong on that list.
Yes, in our case there are some individuals and businesses on shore who depend upon the cruise ship industry, one that is said to contribute only about 7% to the Key West economy. However, here is a chance to restart our engine with strategies that play to our best natural attributes: the water (every aspect of it), the rich blend of great people, the entertainment, the food, its heritage, and a funky vibe that is not really enhanced by thousands of people being disgorged into a small area where they have neither the time nor ability to learn what Key West is really about. With a repackaged message our shops, restaurants, bars, and many attractions will continue to lure visitors to the island via the air and land once the travel all-clear has been sounded. Also, this should create new repurposed jobs for those whose employment was dependent directly on Cruise ships.
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I still cannot get into the site to read articles. No matter what I click on – whichever link – it does not allow me to access or subscribe.
have you logged in w/ your user id & password? on the website menu click the login and you should be ok, if not call me 305-766-5832
The best, most inclusive and accurate analysis of the effect of the cruise industry I’ve read–including the immense, unread analysis the City paid for a decade ago. Yes, cruisers leave some money at the bars selling beer cheaper than that onboard, and on some local features like the bike tours. But it is not being elitist to compare this economic input to every other form of income from visitors and new residents. I hope everyone voting in the expected referendum gets a chance to read this.
I’m curious where the 7% figure comes from. It seems to me like most of lower Duval benefits from cruise ships except the hotels. I’m curious what the study asked and of whom to come to this figure.