sbck
Source: Santa Barbara Channel Keeper
On Thursday, April 21, the City of Santa Barbara Harbor Commission voted unanimously to establish a formal process in which the public can participate in an evaluation of the City’s cruise ship program. The Harbor Commission approved the formation of a new Cruise Ship Subcommittee as a first step in the assessment.
With the return of cruise ships to Santa Barbara after a two-year hiatus, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper resumed its cruise ship monitoring program this spring to help deter ships from discharging wastewater in the proximity of Santa Barbara. Channelkeeper also worked with the Waterfront Department to encourage cruise ships to reduce vessel speeds when approaching Santa Barbara to protect migrating whales from ship-strike.
Channelkeeper recently presented the Harbor Commission with additional recommendations for the City’s cruise ship program. Among these items was the establishment of a subcommittee to host a public process to re-evaluate the cruise ship program as it relates to the City’s economic, environmental, and community goals and to develop recommendations regarding the future path of the program. The Harbor Commission’s decision to create a Cruise Ship Subcommittee to help evaluate the cruise ship program will provide a significant opportunity for community members to voice their opinions and provide input on this important issue. Community input will help guide the future of cruise ship visitation in Santa Barbara.
Cruise ship visits to Santa Barbara are a polarizing topic. While some community members support the financial contributions from cruise ship tourism, others oppose the ships’ visitation because of their harmful environmental impacts and record of legal violations. Among the issues Channelkeeper will urge the Subcommittee to examine throughout the process is the City’s ability to achieve its adopted climate-related objectives, while simultaneously sponsoring a program that invites ships from an industry known to be one of the biggest sources of air pollution in Santa Barbara County to anchor offshore.
“As we’ve looked more closely at the emissions that these ships release, even while just anchored offshore, we have started really questioning whether or not this program aligns with the City’s broader climate-related goals and policies,” said Benjamin Pitterle, Channelkeeper’s Science and Policy Director. “This subcommittee will provide everyone an opportunity to examine all the pieces that go along with the cruise ship program in order to make informed and intentional decisions moving forward. We applaud the Harbor Commission’s decision to gather public input and conduct a thorough assessment of Santa Barbara’s cruise ship program.”
The Harbor Commission will provide public announcements in the future with details about the subcommittee and ways for the community to get involved.
We have seen them docking and bringing in the COVID-laden hordes. Soon our numbers will be through the roof due to these party animal cruise goers spreading their virus all over us.
Require a certain number of cruise ship beds be reserved for SB’s homeless population. Grab your rum and see ya later.
FunnyMan to the rescue!
If we’re gonna not allow any industry here and go for all hospitality as our economy, then why wouldn’t we want more tourists? Bring them on for the day! Doesn’t help me, but there are lots of folks that would benefit.
Not a joke
COVID-laden hordes? good one OAK MAN!! You make it sound like they had to test positive before getting on board. Far more people stop in Santa Barbara on a weekend drive than by a once in a while boat. Don’t know how many show up by plane every day, seven days a week but it would probably qualify as a horde.
Sure, tourism is great. But cruise ships are gross. They are notoriously lax about treating and dumping sewage offshore, and existing law only keeps them from dumping raw sewage 3 miles from the coast. Thousands of toilets, food waste, and diesel straight into the channel and onto our beaches so some tshirt shops and restaurants can get extra income. The more ships that visit, the more waste builds up. The owner of the ship in the picture, Princess cruise lines, got busted in 2013 for dumping sewage and plastic near shore and covering it up, then got dinged again in 2019 for the same thing! They can come back when they have basic decency.
VOR: Yet again with the false all or nothing dichotomy. Nobody is arguing to shut it all down. Just don’t leave crap in the water! It’s not that hard, the companies are just too lazy and cheap to do wastewater treatment and the govt. is too lazy to enforce the law. Whats the point of living in paradise if there’s dookie in the water and on the beaches?
OAK – bwahaha! Yeah, they’re different clientele from “party animals,” as cruisers aren’t taking 7-50 day cruises around the world to “party.” You’re actually being “classist” by looking down on an entire group of people based on some outdated and nonsensical assumption. Carry on….. lol
Exactly who am I looking down on? Unbelievable
By calling ALL cruise ship vacationers “party animals,” you are attributing a negative implication to an entire group, regardless of who they actually are. Again, people on these CA, Alaska and 1-2 month world cruises that stop here in SB are not the same as the drunken college students who frequent the 3-day Ensenada cruises.
Further, how was my original comment “racist?”
Chillin, please follow the thread I was commenting on.
And if there was “dookie in the water” the channel keepers who follow and test the water behind the boats would let us.
Virus spreads like plague on board ships.
At the end of the day, we are modern versions of Medieval serfs and peasants railing against the landed gentry while becoming ever more dependent of the largess of our Lords and Ladies.
Serve, and you might eat.
Rebel, and you may starve.
this is the reason we dont want them. they dont “benefit” everyone. only a certain few.
the drawbacks are worse. if you think a hospitality industry is perfect for a small beach town, imagine what will happen when you put all those eggs in one basket and it stops?
like state street…….. locals used to go there. no local shops there now. when the tourists stop. those business’s fail. citys are not money makers
Our local economy would be crushed if the hospitality/tourism component was removed and it’s impact on our town would extend far beyond that specific industry.
VOR, bring it. I lived here when that WAS NOT the case. and we did fine
OAK MAN – “party animal cruise goers” – uh, you obviously have no idea how much these cruises cost or who the people are taking these. These aren’t “party cruises,” you’re confused with 3 day Carnival Ensenada trips. The ships that stop here are on Alaska trips, CA coast and even world wide cruise trips. MUCH different clientele.
Yes, and 30 years ago our population was smaller, our economy was smaller, the number employed was smaller and the cost of living was lower. Those times are long gone and it would be catastrophic for our current community should that industry just disappear; massive job losses and business closures focused directly on small businesses. And if it did, the middle class would be further forced out, with the very wealthy swooping in to buy up their homes rather than seeing the higher levels of lower / middle class homeownership SB had 30 years ago.
TJ, this was focused on the entire tourism / hospitality industry in town not just cruises and no, it wasn’t completely removed the past 2 years by any means, we had a huge influx of day and weekend visitors from throughout CA in addition the massive economic stimulus provided.
Make each and every cruise ship have a clean bill of health with no sewage dumping events for the last year before they can dock in our harbor. Limit the number to a couple not every other day, we were doing fine without them. The harbor department gets a lot of $ per COVID boat load ,but by the time they have two policeman sitting there all the traffic cones put up they probably come out in a rear
Voice of Dookie: Please grasp the fact that a tiny boat from a local nonprofit isn’t going to do much to enforce laughable laws. They can and do dump raw sewage three miles offshore under existing law. That’s just a fact.
Remember that cruises are “all you can eat” so they are less likely to be patronizing restaurants here, and once they have strolled up State Street and seen the souvenir kitsch where are they going? There is no organized area where the jeep tour or other experience enablers are gathered, like the Land Shark sometimes is by the Wharf. If people could stroll up and take their pick from wine tours, Cloud Climbers, etc that would at least get them past the acquisition of the made-in-China t-shirts and into an opportunity to actually SEE some of why we consider this a world-class tourist destination. There used to be “taxi ranks” and now there could be Uber Zones or other purveyors of vehicles who could convey visitors to our local sights.
They do hit the local rental car offices to take a nice drive up to Santa Ynez and Solvang for the day.
LUCKY777 – they have a plethora of on-shore excursions that people sign up for. It’s hardly as if the thousands of people are just mulling about lower State not spending money. The whole purpose of these high end cruises is to explore new locales. The all you can eat thing is fine, but on long cruises, everyone is getting off the ship to try local foods or see local sites. A LOT of misperceptions here about the people who take these cruises.