Cruise rep blames
regs as ships leave
By Jessica Edwards
In the wake of news Haines lost the twice monthly docking
of a large cruise ship for the 2010 season, an Alaska Cruise Association representative
last week told Chamber of Commerce members Haines should lobby state legislators to
overturn current wastewater laws if the community wants more ships.
“The solution is to amend the initiative if you want
passengers coming to the community,” ACA spokesman Rod Pfleiger said March 27. He
said the stringent wastewater laws and taxes imposed on the cruise industry were driving
ships away.
Some residents questioned the connection between tax and
wastewater regulations in the 2006 cruise ship initiative and the cruise line’s
decision to redeploy, saying a shaky economy was more likely to blame for poor cruise
sales.
“Is the initiative the only thing causing a hostile
environment?” asked resident and tourism worker Diana Lapham. “In all your
research, you don’t feel Alaska has plateaued to a certain degree? It seems there
could be a whole different ball of wax influencing passengers’ frame of mind.”
Resident Jack Wenner questioned if the $50 passenger tax
priced Alaska cruises out of the market.
Pfleiger said other destinations didn’t charge
“fees to visit,” nor required retrofitting ships to meet wastewater standards at
the point of discharge. Also at issue, Pfleiger said, were corporate income and gambling
taxes levied as part of the Alaska initiative.
Pfleiger said the cruise industry can’t meet
wastewater standards “at the pipe” as set down in the 2006 cruise ship
initiative, and in the current economic climate, doing business in Alaska was becoming too
expensive.
He compared the law requiring the industry to meet
wastewater standards at the point of discharge to “putting our mouths at the end of a
(vehicle) exhaust pipe,” and said it was unfair to disallow the cruise industry the
“mixing zones” allowed all other commercial dischargers in the state.
If the law is not revised, cruise companies will steam
into federal waters to dump wastewater, cutting port calls to communities like Haines, or
would “redeploy in a more friendly environment to do business.”
A bill in the Alaska Legislature that would maintain
initiative standards but give ships two additional years to comply with them was headed
for consideration in the state House this week.
While the market for Alaska cruises faltered, Pfleiger
said, companies were still filling ships bound for Europe and Mexico. “If they are
not filling ships, and there is a market that is, they will move that ship.” Holland America said March 25 it
was redeploying the Ryndam in 2010. That followed decisions by Royal Caribbean and
Princess Cruise Lines to each pull a ship from Skagway in 2010.
The Ryndam is slated for nine port calls in 2009. The
loss of the Holland America ship, which has docked every other Monday the past three
years, means 16,000 fewer passengers and crew members will disembark in Haines in 2010.
The company also docks a ship here Wednesdays.
Haines tour businesses will likely feel Skagway’s
loss of the RCCL and Princess ships. In 2008, about 26,000 cruise ship passengers from
cruise ships docking in Skagway came to Haines aboard fast ferries bound for tour
excursions.
Tour operator Karen Hess, who supports the cruise
industry position, said she was worried about poor business this year and next. “We’re
worried about the type of passengers… who do not have money to spend on expensive
tours.”
Carnival Corp. chairman Micky Arison recently told USA
Today the 2006 initiative had been detrimental to Alaska tourism, slowing growth of the
tour industry. “And today the $50 (per passenger) tax is a significant price to pay
in a situation of a very sensitive consumer environment.”
Cruise initiative sponsor Gershon Cohen, who helped
author its water quality requirement, said the economy is to blame for poor sales and the
redeployment of ships, not Alaska laws.
Cohen said claims that the initiative dragged Alaska
tourism down were disproved by a 2007 McDowell Group study that showed cruise ship
dockings, passenger numbers, and spending per passenger hadn’t decreased in the wake
of it.
Cohen said advanced shore-based treatments existed and
just need to be engineered for on-board use, and said many ships currently met the
standards at the pipe some of the time, proving it was possible.
He said legislation being considered by the state house
kept the “point of discharge” measurement of effluent levels for wastewater and
extended the deadline for compliance.
The current version of house bill also includes a
provision for a science panel to work with state regulators on the most technologically
and economically feasible way to meet standards.
Rep. Bill Thomas said both cruise lines and initative
sponsors seemed satisfied with the bill’s current iteration. The bill will likely be considered by the house this week.
Robert Venables, who has served as borough manager,
economic development director and president of the chamber, said he thought environmental
restrictions and taxes on gambling and income were connected to recent decisions to move
ships out of Alaska, but said the $50 head tax probably had less of an impact.
“It’s
not personal,” Venables said. “(The cruise lines) come here to make money. If
they can make a ton of money after we charge them a lot of money, then they’d
continue to come.”
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