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Joined: Oct 1999
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Biggest cruise ship ever drops anchor in Belize
Cruise tourism is growing. I mean really growing. And if you don't trust the statistics, a stroll through the Fort George area of Belize City on almost any given weekday will convince you. Today, local media houses were treated to a tour of the latest--and largest--member of the expanding fleet now calling on Belize. And while all the journalists were, as expected,
blown away by the luxury, News 5's Stewart Krohn discovered that for Belize it may not always mean smooth sailing.
Stewart Krohn, Reporting According to agents for Royal Caribbean International, she is the largest cruise ship ever to anchor in Belizean waters. With a displacement of one hundred and thirty-seven thousand tons and a length of over a thousand feet, the Voyager of the Seas and her sister ships dwarf almost anything short of an aircraft carrier. With room for over thirty-eight hundred guests and a crew of almost twelve hundred, The Voyager of The Seas can best be thought of as a fully functional city of five thousand people...kind of like having Dangriga Town anchored a few miles off Belize City.
But as cities go, The Voyager is far closer to Disney World than Dangriga. With its numerous restaurants, swimming pools, shopping arcades, casino, and sporting activities--including an ice rink--it's a wonder that passengers ever leave the ship. But most of them do...and according to port agent Stanley Longsworth, Belize reaps a number of benefits.
Stanley Longsworth, Port Agent, Royal Caribbean "I think the big areas that we're obviously doing well in is the creation of jobs. There are hundreds of people employed when a ship comes in everyday. And this covers a wide spectrum of our Belizean populous from taxi drivers to tour guides, shop vendors. There's a lot of people involved and a lot of people do benefit from it; owners of boats, bus owners. I think that apart from that, the industry brings to Belize a lot of foreign exchange. It is said that each passenger spends roughly a hundred dollars in Belize every time a ship's in port, so we gain foreign exchange also. Apart from that, passengers do return for longer stays in Belize, so we get publicity on the international scene. All in all, I think it's a good deal for Belize."
But that deal doesn't look all that good when compared to the benefits of land based overnight tourism. In terms of taxes, government collects seven percent of every hotel dollar, not to mention airport departure taxes, sales tax, and other indirect levies. In the case of cruise passengers, the head tax totals only five U.S. dollars, four of which go to the owners of the Tourism Village and one to the Protected Areas Conservation Trust, PACT.
And that floating city of five thousand souls has much in common with other land bound municipalities: that is, how to dispose of its waste. According to captain Svein Petterson, The Voyager of the Seas except all international specifications for waste disposal. He says no garbage is
thrown overboard and much is recycled. Grey water is treated before dumping, and as for all those thousands of ever flushing toilets?
Svein Petterson, Captain, Voyager of the Seas "We have holding tanks for our sewerage and we treat our
sewerage. And what we pump overboard, we pump overboard outside of twelve nautical miles. Nothing is left inside of twelve nautical miles."
But twelve nautical miles from Belize City still leaves any waste well within Belize's territorial waters. And with our stead easterly trade winds almost anything dumped into the Caribbean eventually finds its way to our shores, not to
mention our reefs.
Which leads us to the question of who actually polices dozens of cruise ships criss-crossing the region.
Svein Petterson "We have international rules and regulations that polices it. We have our internal SQM system that goes over and above
what is required by international law, so we are ahead of the game."
Stewart Krohn "Okay, but when I ask you about policing...the ship is registered in the Bahamas, you visit a lot of small countries that really don't have the capacity to do any policing, the United States doesn't visit you in the middle of the sea to check on these things do they? So really you're policing
yourselves, so when you tell me all this we pretty much have to take your word for it?"
Svein Petterson "I don't know where you are leading up to, but everything that we are doing on board is documented..."
Stewart Krohn "No, what I'm asking is, it's documented to whom? In other words, as captain who are you answerable to?"
Svein Petterson "We are answerable to any authority that comes aboard and check our ship. And everything that we do is documented in log books and our log books are checked periodically by also authorities like the U.S."
Stewart Krohn "But what authority would the United States have to worry about things that you outside of our ports?"
Svein Petterson "Because whoever has appropriated the international rules and regulations, they also have the authority to do the controls."
Stewart Krohn "Even though you're not the Unites States...
Svein Petterson "Registered, absolutely. Belize can do the control if they like."
Stewart Krohn "But a small country like Belize, with all these cruise ships coming, how are we going to police the ships?"
Svein Petterson "Well you have to police your own coast and if you have any suspicions as to if the ships are not following international rules that will be your problem to solve."
And that's exactly what has many Belizeans, including this one, worried. Stewart Krohn for News 5.
The Voyager of the Seas, or one of her sister ships, will dock in Belize every two weeks for at least the next year. The ship's owner, Royal Caribbean, along with Diamonds International, has recently purchased the tourism village.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Not a greatly reassuring article.
Gone fishing!!
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 11,062
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anyone actually believe the economic benifits?? 3800 pax @ $100 = 380,000 x 26 bi-weekly stops = $9.8 mil approx - allowing for 30% occupancy voids, it still calculates out to nearly $7 mil - from this ship alone! I seriously doubt it and, to top it off, 80% of the port fees are going back into the pockets of a consortium, of which they are the major stakeholder :rolleyes:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ But then what do I know, I am but a mere caveman
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Joined: Feb 2003
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If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.
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Joined: May 2000
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I like when (if) Marty's bored. Lots of good info! Thx
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Joined: Oct 1999
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not greatly reassuring is right, bill... i'm wid you.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 269
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Makes you wonder how many enviornmentalists take cruises without giving a thought to where their sewage is going.
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
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probably a lot of environmentaliss don't take cruises for that exact reason.
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
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From a friend...
On Friday Dec 19th Stuart Krohn intervied captain of "Voyager of the Seas", biggest cruise ship to come to Belize yet. When asked about pollution the captain said, "our logbooks are there to be inspected if a country suspects that their waters are being polluted" or words to that effect. Well check out this news piece of the very same day on the same subject:
Friday, December 19, 2003
By Associated Press
MIAMI - Three cruise ship engineers were indicted Thursday on charges of falsifying log books to conceal the dumping of waste oil at sea.
Knut Sorboe, Peter Solemdal and Aage Lokkebraten, all of Norway, were employees of Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. at the time of the alleged crimes, said Tom Sansonetti, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.
They no longer work for the cruise line, the company said. It could not immediately be determined if they had attorneys.
Norwegian Cruise Line pleaded guilty in April 2000 to keeping a false log book and admitted the company lied to the Coast Guard for three years about unlawful discharges from the 2,030-passenger SS Norway during weekly Caribbean voyages. The company paid a $1.5 million fine.
Norwegian admitted polluting the ocean in two ways: flushing an oil sensor with fresh water to make contaminated discharges look clean and dumping untreated wastewater overboard. It is unknown how much oil and contaminated water was dumped.
The indictment alleges that the men used false log books to conceal the broken oil sensor. The log books are required as a pollution record, inspected by the Coast Guard, prosecutors said.
The men each face up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the conspiracy and falsification charges.
An employee fired from the Norway reported the matter to the Environmental Protection Agency in 1999. The whistle-blower has been awarded $250,000 for the tip, prosecutors said.
Source: Associated Press
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Gone fishing!!
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