Environmental, economic factors to be considered before cruise ships drop anchor in Monterey.

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Peninsula

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If the thought of hundreds of Bermuda-short-clad, camera-wielding tourists descending upon your hometown all at the same time strikes fear in your heart, watch out. If new legislation introduced earlier this month in Congress passes, passenger ships filled with tacky tourists may soon be cruising up and down California''s coast.

The U.S. Cruise Ship and Tourism Development Act of 1999, introduced by senators John McCain, R-Arizona, and Dianne Feinstein, D-California, would change a century-old law that restricts foreign-built ships from traveling between U.S. ports without also hitting a foreign port in between.

Whether the city of Monterey will embrace cruise ships dropping anchor locally, however, is another matter. "I don''t think that you should automatically draw as the next conclusion," says Monterey City Manager Fred Meurer, "that the city of Monterey is going to get into the cruise ship business big time."

While advocates tout the green benefits--both environmental and economic--of cruise-ship tourism, environmentalists are concerned of possible impacts the floating resorts could have on the Monterey Bay.

If you''re a Teamster, a retailer or a farmworker, you should look favorably upon the idea of cruise ships docking in Monterey, says Monterey City Councilmember Don Edgren, who is also the city''s representative on the Cruising America Coalition, a group involved in shaping the new legislation. Cash flowing from cruise ships docked in Monterey would bring an economic boon, says Edgren, that would trickle throughout the county.

And the real beauty of it, says Edgren, is we''re talking about car-less tourists. "None of us like to have traffic jams," says Edgren. "On these cruise ships, tourists would be coming in without the pollution of automobiles or the traffic of the highways."

However, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Advisory members questioned in a March 1996 meeting the ecological soundness of cruise-ship proliferation in the sanctuary--and with good reason. Cruise lines as of late don''t have the best reputation as being environmentally conscious. Last month, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Ltd. plead guilty to 21 counts of dumping oil and hazardous materials in U.S. waters and was fined $18 million. Only a year before, the same cruise line was fined $9 million for illegal dumping off Florida and Puerto Rico.

While Royal Caribbean''s offenses were highly publicized, Edgren notes illegal dumping activities are atypical of a cruise ship carrying passengers who can witness illegal activities. "There are very stringent laws about dumping," he says. "But obviously, some people violate them just like some people run red lights."

From an economic as well as an educational point of view, Monterey Councilmember Ruth Vreeland sees some benefit of cruising people through the bay. "There are some benefits from the standpoint of interpreting the sanctuary," she says, "but we wouldn''t want to do anything to harm the bay."

Vreeland''s concerns involve the less toxic but more destructive dumping of ballast water. Ballast water is clean ocean water taken into a ship''s ballast to balance the ship. Ships take on the extra water for weight in rough seas, and dump it in calmer seas and to increase speed.

The concern with dumping ballast water is that it sucks up species of flora and fauna in one place, and spits them out in another, disrupting delicate marina ecosystems. "These ''alien invaders'' don''t have natural enemies in their new world," says Scott Kathey, enforcement and regulatory officer for the sanctuary. "They quickly take over and nudge out indigenous species."

Foreign species are a major problem in the San Francisco Bay, says Kathey, where some 250 non-indigenous species have been introduced since 1850. The sanctuary has no rules against dumping ballast water, and Kathey says such a rule would be difficult to enforce.

However, Kathey points out that the Monterey Bay is deeper and more open than the San Francisco Bay, and species are less likely to survive here. But it can happen. Currently, the Monterey Bay is struggling with its own alien invaders, such as the European green crab that scientists believe was introduced from ballast water.

Besides environmental impacts, a number of fiscal factors will also have to be considered. New infrastructure, such as public restrooms and harbor upgrades, may have to be built to accommodate the extra tourists.

"We don''t know what the major capital investment would be," Meurer says. And funding for improvements would have to come out of other projects that have been on a "waiting list for money for quite some time," he says.

"The city becoming actively involved in marketing to the cruise ship industry," Meurer continues, "is a decision that would have to be made by the City Council."

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