At the end of the day, the cruise ship didn’t come, but the people of Moloka`i still held their Ho`olaule`a. The band played, the hula was danced, and dozens of local craftspeople hawked their quilts, woodwork, and other collectables intended for the 1,200 tourists aboard Holland America’s Statendam.
After musicians hired by the Moloka`i Visitors Bureau to welcome the first-ever visit finished their set, protester Loretta Witte and her niece, wearing their ‘Stop-the-cruise-ship’ T-shirts, climbed onto the same stage and danced the hula.
The rural island’s 7,000 residents are no strangers to strife over development, and in such a small community, people learn to agree to disagree. And that easy, congenial way of life is part of what protestors are trying to protect. Even more important to them, however, are the island’s extensive fringing reef and bountiful coastal waters. This has prompted an island watchdog group, Hui Ho`opakele `Aina, to file a lawsuit to prevent the ship from coming without an assessment of its effects on the island’s culture and environment.
Publicity surrounding the Moloka`i protests – which has reached as far as the New York Times and CNN – has caused state legislators and officials to hold public meetings to discuss the growing cruise ship industry. While some are skeptical of the industry’s benefits and wary of its potential dangers, others are seeking ways to cater to it.
Strong winds kept the Statendam at bay that day last December, eerily blowing in a direction some say they never blow in, as if to say, “Keep away.”
The Statendam missed its first visit to Moloka`i because of hazardous conditions, something it will probably encounter in the future. Its second no-show on January 22 resulted from having to rescue engendered yachters, a side trip that cost the ship a day. The ship isn’t scheduled to arrive again until April. For many, the delays provide an opportunity to do something for Moloka`i, with its 7,000 residents, that hasn’t been done for the state’s more populated islands: study the effects of increased cruise ship tourism beforehand, to assess the island’s infrastructure capacity, and ship and tourist traffic impacts on the island’s natural resources.
Such a study was essentially what the Sierra Club tried to get the state to do when it sued the Hawai`i Tourism Authority to do an environmental assessment of its multi-million marketing plan to lure more tourists here. That effort failed when the state Supreme Court ruled last December that the Sierra Club had no standing in the case and that a marketing plan was too diffuse and not localized enough to study effects.
The Statendam visit to Moloka`i, however, is a discrete and highly localized event. And what judge could say that that Moloka`i residents who fish the island’s waters don’t have standing? At least that’s what the attorney representing the hui, Isaac Moriwake of Earthjustice, is hoping for.
And Moriwake shares his clients’ feeling that Moloka`i holds lessons for the rest of the state. Throughout the islands, the cruise industry is growing, and for the most part, is seen as a boon to the economy. But the industry has a track record of pollution outside Hawai`i that is worth noting.
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later
The idea of inviting communities to discuss whether or not to host cruise ships seems, to some, an odd thing. All kinds of vessels — cargo barges, longliners, sailboats — come and go without fanfare or controversy. But cruise ships, critics say, are not just big ships, they’re floating cities, complete with their own sewage treatment plants and incinerators. The largest luxury liners can hold roughly 3,000 passengers, or nearly half the entire population of Moloka`i. So when small communities find out a cruise ship is coming to town, it can be a big deal.
In September 1996, to Hanalei’s surprise, the cruise ship Seabourn Pride, showed up in the north Kaua`i’ town’s bay, which had already seen much controversy over commercial boating run amok. Community members were outraged, especially when they found out that the state was allowing an unpermitted local boat company, Hanalei Sea Tours, to shuttle the ship’s passengers to shore. As Environment Hawai`i reported in May 1999, Hanalei resident Scott Robeson wrote to then Gov. Ben Cayetano, ” If this type of uncontrolled venture is allowed in Hanalei, it will spread to every coastal roadstead on the shoreline of every island that is capable of being used as an anchorage by any passenger ship so inclined.”
The lesson of including communities on significant developments seems to have been lost when the state Department of Transportation and Department of Land and Natural Resources approved the Statendam’s request to visit Moloka`i. Moloka`i residents outside the inner circle of planners and service providers had to find out on the street or in the newspaper that a cruise ship was coming. ”
Unbeknownst to us, there was two years of planning that went into this,” says Shari O`Shaughnessy, a Moloka`i resident who attended the December protest. “A lot of people wished there was more dialogue. People asked why HTA poured money into something brought to Moloka`i through unscrupulous means, meaning there was all planning but nobody ever knew about itÉ. The first I heard of it was the day it came out in local paper, very first article. The Dispatch ran an ad that said if you wanted to be a vendor, you could pay $50 for a booth.”
Protest organizer Walter Ritte heard the news of the ship on the streets. Someone told him there to be a meeting by people interested in participating in receiving the Statendam. “Some private group was getting funded,” Ritte says. “They were putting together a meeting for activities. That was the first meeting we went to find out details. We said, ‘We don’t like the idea of the ship coming. We have concerns.’ They said, ‘You can always protest.'”
Maria Holmes with the Moloka`i Visitors Association says that in 2000, the cruise ship industry indicated it wanted to visit Moloka`i and the DLNR harbormaster then provided the association with a list of ships available with a maximum capacities of 1,500 passengers and under. From there, “It just kind of evolved,” she says. “The community doesn’t really have a say in approving or disapproving. It’s the DLNR. We were asked if we could handle it. We knew it would not be possible if there were no ground transportation. So we asked providers and they all said yeah. Then the ship, through Abercrombie and Kent [luxury tour outfitters], organized ground tours and activities, and A&K worked independently with vendors.”
While Earthjustice argues that cruise vessels need to have state permits, DOT and DLNR representatives say that advance booking only is required. Dave Parsons of the DLNR’s Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, which administers small harbors, says, “The ones that need permits are ones that operate regularly from a facility, more than eight times a year. But those are usually locally based, owned and operated. Cruise ships wouldn’t come under that requirement because they are engaged in international and foreign commerce. That’s a distinction in our rules. Those vessels come under federal jurisdiction governed primary under maritime laws, not state law.”
What’s more, a December 2001 U.S. District Court order may further limit the state’s ability to prohibit a cruise ship from using state resources. The court’s ruling on a DLNR decision to ban commercial boating in Hanalei concluded that the ban was unconstitutional because it violated “the doctrine of conflict preemption” based on the Supremacy and Commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
Don’t Let This Happen To You
It’s not just the small communities that cruise ships can disrupt. While the state’s common ports of call have welcomed cruise ships, many larger communities are affected as well.
In Lahaina, where cruise ship passengers are ferried in from ships anchored offshore, boaters have complained in the past that the traffic chases other tourists away, and school children and teachers at a nearby elementary school have suffered from the exhaust fumes that the cruise passengers’ tour buses spew out.
More recently, at a January 13 briefing at the state Capitol, Rep. Brian Blundell of West Maui expressed his concern over ongoing impacts. While he said he had discussed the issues with Waldron Steamship Co., agent for many of the cruise ships, “Nowhere in the past has the industry sat down with the community.” He continued that on Maui, the massive cruise ships have disrupted an annual yacht race as well as the Lahaina fishing tournament, an event Blundell said had to be moved somewhere else. The cruise ships “have taken the ability for boats from other islands to participate” in community activities.
North West Cruiseship Association president John Hansen, responding to Blundell’s remarks, said his organization is “very much interested in dealing with these kinds of concerns.” Hansen had suggested earlier in the hearing that Kona and Lahaina harbors be configured to accommodate two ships at a time and that waterside access and on-shore traffic management be improved. Hansen also said that the DOT needed to improve six piers at Honolulu Harbor; make changes to Kaua`i’s Nawiliwili Harbor; give Hilo Harbor passenger facilities a makeover; and enlarge both the Kaua`i and Hilo facilities to enable them to handle simultaneous visits of two “Panamax” ships (the largest vessels that can squeeze through the Panama Canal).
When Blundell asked if the industry was participating in the cost of upgrading the state’s facilities, Hansen said that, “almost always, the industry is involved in one way or another. In some cases, it’s through port and facility fees.”
E Malama
To smooth traffic for Moloka`i’s first cruise ship experience, the MVA’s Holmes says there will be five 15-passenger vans shuttling from the harbor into Kaunakakai town every 20 minutes, from arrival to departure. Two local companies – Moloka`i Off-road Tours and Taxi, and Moloka`i Outdoor Activities – will provide the transportation.
But while congestion is one issue, those protesting the ship’s visit are far more concerned with the effect such large ships will have on ocean resources. Ritte says, “We have some of the best reefs, the largest continuous reef in the whole nation.” He recalled the U.S. Geological Survey studying the island’s reefs a couple of years ago: “These guys did a lot of diving and were really impressed,” he said.
That impression is confirmed in a letter from USGS Senior Marine Geologist Michael Field to Moriwake. “The reef off South Moloka`i is one of, and perhaps the single most, extensive and continuous fringing coral reef in the main Hawaiian Islands,” Field wrote in a December 4, 2002 letter. “In terms of native coral growth and accretion, the reef extends from Hale-O-Lono on the west to Kamalo on the east, a distance of approximately 24 miles.” Kaunakakai lies approximately in the center of the reef, he noted, and the forereef outside the breakers (reef crest) “is arguably one of the richest reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands in terms of coral abundance and diversity.” The area is home to several rare coral species, he continued.
When Ritte first learned of plans for the Statendam’s arrival, “All we knew was that it was big and it was going to have an impact on our icebox,” referring to the ocean that provides food for many Moloka`i residents. Later, he said, people found out through Earthjustice and Alaska activist Gershon Cohen that the industry had a dirty track record. Cohen visited Moloka`i in December and told the community of Alaska’s experience with the industry, where the state recently instituted the country’s first state regulations on cruise ships. Cohen’s visit “big-time changed the way people thought,” Ritte says. Before Cohen, “Nobody saw the negatives.”
Cohen, an activist with the Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters, used his background in molecular biology and environmental policy to help the Alaskan state government create regulations for cruise ship discharges. When Cohen was in Hawai`i last December, he said that cruise ships dump about 300,000 tons of trash at sea every year. Every day, one ship produces about 270,000 gallons of graywater (sink, shower, laundry, galley water), 30,000 gallons of blackwater (sewage), 1,000 pounds of sewage sludge a day, and 7,000 gallons of oily bilge water. A single cruise ship, he says, can also release more air pollution every day than 12,000 automobiles.
And then there are the anchors and chains to consider. According to the Smithsonian Institute’s Ocean Planet website, coral reefs in 90 of 109 countries are being damaged by cruise- ship anchors and sewage, by tourists breaking off chunks of coral, and by sales of coral to tourists. One USGS study of a cruise ship anchor dropped in a coral reef in 1988 found an area about half the size of a football field completely destroyed, and half again as much covered by rubble that died later. Monitoring at this Caribbean site has shown no significant recovery of hard coral 8 years later. A survey of 186 boats in 1987 revealed that 32 percent were anchored in seagrasses and 14 percent in coral communities. About 40 percent of the anchors in coral and 58 percent in seagrass beds caused damage.
Moriwake says that while the state has designated mooring areas for smaller boats, no state regulations govern where a cruise ship can anchor. And anchor damage isn’t the only threat to the reef. Hawai`i coral reef ecologist Dave Gulko is worried about the photo-developing chemicals and silver byproducts that might be in ship discharges. “In a coral reef environment, if you have larvae and it never settles, it’s as good as dying.É You don’t need an anchor to damage coral. All you have to have for a negative impact is a chemical inhibitor effect or endocrine disruptor É and you’ve disrupted it. You need to be concerned about chemical effects. It’s one thing to have them once in blue moon, another thing to have them seven days a week.”
Repeated releases of pollutants in Alaska led the state’s Tlingit and Haida Indian tribes to pass a resolution in 2000 objecting to cruise ship dumping of pollutants in Southeast Alaska waters. The resolution supported the newly formed Alaskan Interagency Cruise Ship Initiative, and requested federal and state governments to prohibit all discharges from cruise lines within 12 miles of shore; require all cruise lines to have discharge-monitoring devices; and Prohibit ships caught illegally discharging from entering southeast Alaskan waters. The resolution cites the threat that cruise line discharges will contaminate subsistence foods, a possible environmental justice issue.
Also in that year, Alaskan legislators tried and failed to require large passenger vessels to register with the state’s Department of Environmental Compliance (ADEC) and report all discharges. Results of wastewater sampling program that summer, implemented by the Alaskan Interagency Cruise Ship Initiative, showed high levels of fecal coliform and total suspended solids in wastewater from ships that had submitted to testing. Those results prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a law in 2001 that regulates cruise ship and ferry wastewater discharges in the state’s marine waters. A December 2001 report by ADEC found that new wastewater treatment systems ships installed to meet Alaska’s new regulations now do a good job of filtering pollutants.
But in Hawai`i, where the pollution has not been so excessive and blatant, it may be harder to convince legislators that the ships pose a threat to reefs. At the January 13 public hearing, Maui Rep. Joseph Souki suggested that the state’s own sewage, which is pumped into wells or the ocean, is to blame for any detectable damage to Hawai`i’s marine life.
MOU
NWCA’s Hansen has said a number of times that it’s in the industry’s best interest to keep the environment of its destinations clean. Otherwise, why would tourists want to visit?
To further gain the state’s trust, the NWCA signed a Memorandum of Understating created by Hawai`i officials last October that was put together by the industry working with officials from the state Department of Health and Office of Planning, within the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism.
Willie Nagamine, director of the DOH’s Clean Air Branch, says at least 10 meetings on the MOU were held, organized by the NWCA and Gary Gill, former director of the DOH’s Environmental Management Division. And there was public input, at least initially, he says.
“Early on we had scoping meetings where the public was involved. There was a broad range of representatives, a huge amount of people. My participation was helping narrow down key environmental pollutantsÉ.We went ahead and told [the association] our concerns and gave them some starting language for air and water as well.” Nagamine says DOH officials looked to Alaska and Florida to find out about the experiences other places have had with cruise ships. “We went on our own,” he says. “They [the industry] gave nothing to us. Being as cautious as we are, we did do independent research.”
DOBOR’s Parsons says that the state came up with the distance at which the ships could safely discharge its wastes. Legally, the state’s authority extends from the shore to three miles out, “but then we expressed concern of overboard discharge of sewage too close to the islands. They [NWCA] said they can get along without discharging [too close]É We have a whale sanctuary that extends to Penguin Banks, beyond the three-mile limit. So they said, ‘we’ll go out four miles from 100 fathom curve.'” Parsons adds that the Aquatic Resources Division of the DLNR “was significantly involved in this.”
The MOU spells out where and when certain wastewater can be discharged (four nautical miles outside the 100 fathom contour line) and also places conditions on smokestack emissions. It incorporates the industry’s standards for waste management, and acknowledges that the industry must comply with the federal Resource Conservation Recovery Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Invasive Species Act, among other federal and international laws. There is a provision that there be at least one annual meeting between the state and the NWCA to review the MOU’s effectiveness.
Cohen says that the standards are weaker than those Alaska has adopted.
Despite criticism that compliance with the MOU is voluntary, Tom Arizumi of the DOH’s Environmental Management Division says cruise ships must apply to the DOH for exemptions to discharge waste within the Hawai`i marine area. The ships “need to demonstrate their technology is able to meet [Clean Water Act] standards. They have to do sampling. We felt the MOU is better than nothingÉWe intend to request Coast Guard records quarterly.” As for inspecting the ships to make sure they are complying with the MOU, Arizumi says inspections are complaint driven. The DOH has already had a complaint about the smokestack emissions. Clean Air inspectors took a look and found the ship to be operating within limits specified in the MOU, Arizumi says.
“There was nothing wrong,” Nagamine says, “but I wanted to see what the procedure was. It was a learning experience, finding out who to contact, what records we need to gain.”
One curious omission in the MOU deals with discharge of so-called gray water – wastewater from showers, sinks, kitchen and laundry drains, and the like. The MOU sets standards for untreated blackwater and treated black and gray water, but not untreated gray water.
In February 2000, Congress’ General Accounting Office reported that officials at the Department of Justice wanted the Coast Guard and other agencies to increase their scrutiny of the discharge of gray water. “Justice recently prosecuted a large cruise ship company that was found to be improperly disposing of printing shop, dry-cleaning, and photo lab wastes into its gray water system,” the report states. “These wastes, which included potentially harmful chemicals and toxic silver, were discharged into the sea along with the gray water. According to Justice officials, apart from the potential criminal violations related to toxic substances in gray water discharges, there may be a need for the Coast Guard to review the regulatory definition of gray water to evaluate whether the current regulations adequately address the potential environmental hazards to marine life from gray water discharges.”
In addition, activist Cohen says that gray water “has consistently tested extremely high for fecal coliform contamination and is often contaminated with infirmary wastes such as blood and pharmaceuticals, and spa/beauty parlor wastes.”
The Hawai`i memorandum of understanding also leaves enforcement solely in the U.S. Coast Guard’s hands. However, a U.S. EPA August 2000 white paper states, “One concern raised in the GAO report is that the Coast Guard’s primary focus on ship and passenger safety, coupled with the large size of most cruise ships, the limited time for inspection, and limited staff resources make it difficult for the Coast Guard to perform detailed reviews on the status of a vessel’s environmental compliance.”
On the whole, Hawai`i’s environmental community was not impressed with the MOU. Life of the Land’s Kat Brady says that contrary to what industry representatives told state legislators at the January 13 public hearing, the public was not actively involved in creating the MOU. “There was one meeting where they included environmentalists,” she said. “There were representatives from the cruise ship industry and they all got up and did a song and dance. We could ask questions to a limited amountÉ Then I got the MOU emailed to me by Gary Gill on October 26. I thought I was supposed to prepare comments. But then I pick up paper and read that the governor signed it.” Brady says she was shocked since at the meeting she attended, “it was raised by the environmental community that we need a law. MOUs have no teeth.”
MOUs also cannot control accidents, which, according to the GAO report, account for 72 percent of discharge cases between 1993 and 1998.
Money Talks
For all the arguments to protect the environment and to include public participation, money speaks louder, and the cruise ship industry brings many millions of dollars to Hawai`i’s economy every year. Last year, cruise ship visitors spent $166.5 million in the state. While that is lower than what Canadian and European visitors who arrive by plane spend here, Eugene Tian of DBEDT says cruise ship passengers also contribute to local employment, household income, and government revenues through taxes and harbor fees. The money government spends to support the industry and to address its environmental and social effects are, says Tian, “difficult to quantify at this time, but a study is being done.” A survey of Norwegian Star and Wind crew expenditures was to start last month. Tian added that a model is being developed under the sustainable tourism project, which will be completed later this year.
In addition to passenger expenditures, the NWCA says that in 2001, the industry generated $91.9 million in economic benefits to Hawai`i. These were in the form of travel packages both before and after cruises ($28.6 million), fuel ($24.7 million), lightering ($5.3 million), and stevedoring ($6.8 million), among other things. Add to that $4.4 million in fees paid last year to the DOT and DLNR for wharfage and dockage, and $9 million the NWCA cruise lines spend on marketing their Hawai`i tours, and it’s clear why the state welcomes cruise ships with open arms.
With an unemployment rate higher than that of the larger islands, many in Moloka`i are eager to share in that wealth. O`Shaughnessy says even the kupuna (elders) are saying, “It’s not as though we don’t want visitors.”
And from Holmes’ perspective, the Moloka`i Visitors Association is only trying to help with that. The MVA had 18 Moloka`i vendors signed up for the December 28 visit. For their $50, they were given a 10-foot by 10-foot space of shade and a table, with the association handling set-up and take-down. The shuttle vans would have made their first stop in front of the vendors’ area, close to the harbor. Holmes says 50 other artisans had set up outside the MVA’s designated area, displaying everything from hand-carved jewelry to luggage tags, cards and posters from Moloka`i artists, T-shirts, quilts, dolls, handmade kite kits and windsocks, Christmas ornaments, hats, pareos, candles, seed jewelry, photographs, blankets and pillows, to name a few items.
Holmes says for many of the vendors, “That’s their livelihood. They come every Saturday and every major event. This was just another opportunity.” The Maui Visitors Bureau has projected that a single cruise ship visit to Moloka`i will generate $130,000 in the host economy.
Growth Management
“How much solid waste do you abandon here?” Rep. Bertha Leong asked Royal Carribbean’s representative at the hearing. While he tried to explain the ways his company minimizes waste, he ultimately said he didn’t know the answer.
Hawai`i is struggling with dealing with its own waste, and the idea of floating towns dropping off tons of waste here and then drifting home seemed to bother some legislators. Rep. Brian Schatz, who organized the hearing, asked the industry to provide them with the answer to Leong’s question.
An increase in local waste streams is just one more problem the growing industry brings to Hawai`i. New large foreign vessels to Hawai`i are expected to increase the number of cruise passengers here by 8 percent a year, Cohen says. According to Tian, the number of ship passengers increased by 30 percent from 2001 to 2002 and has tripled since 1997. NWCA expects 265,000 cruise ship passengers this year, and 20,000 more next year.
“The best way to measure the impact is to have it,” Holland America representative John Shively told the legislators.
Earthjustice’s Moriwake disagrees. “Uncertainty is one of the prime reasons why you need a review process. The community is not supposed to be running around like chicken little.” The state, he said, should be the one to assess impacts on public resources.
If and when the ship finally does visit Moloka`i, Holmes says Moloka`i will be ready. For the now-cancelled January visit, everything was to have been set up “exactly the same” as it was in December. If future visits land during the week, “the entertainment will be movedÉinto one area because it’s business day and we don’t want to obstruct the traffic flow.”
And contrary to what everyone is saying, “There wasn’t a lack of public bathrooms.” News reports have made much of the fact that Moloka`i has only one public bathroom. “That’s been misinformation,” Holmes says. “We worked with two portable companies on the island. One supplied toilets to the harbor and in town. There were six in Kaunakakai and went to each merchant and asked merchants, yes or no, if they would allow passengers to use their bathrooms. Some of those said yes, but didn’t want it advertised.”
When they arrive, passengers will be given a newspaper and a map of Kaunakakai indicating pickup and drop-off sites, and available bathrooms. “There were two additional bathrooms at the harbor,” Holmes said. “We have this problem every single Saturday [when the vendors gather to sell their products]. It’s not a new issue; it’s an ongoing one. We wanted it to be a well-managed event. That day, crafters were asking for a bathroom nearby, so I’m getting another one for them.”
Shari O`Shaughnessy says the protestors have discussed one alternative, one that goes back to the issue of scale and carrying capacity.
“Maybe the ship can stay on Maui and passengers can take the Moloka`i Princess over,” she says. The Princess ferries about 100 passengers between Maui and Moloka`i three to four days a week, and tourists often bring bicycles on board so they can pedal around Moloka`i at their leisure.
“The day of the protest, the Moloka`i Princess pulled in with several dozen passengers, but nobody welcomed themÉ. So funny that big waves and wind stopped the big ship but it didn’t stop the Princess.”
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 13, Number 8 February 2003
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