Welcoming cruise industry, within reason – article by Dr. Teddy Gilbreth

Mary Edna’s doctor is Teddy Gilbreth and this article is well written and insightful.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/jun/03/welcoming-cruise-industry-within-reason/?print

Welcoming cruise industry, within reason
Thursday, June 3, 2010

When I started noticing the first cruise ships arriving in Charleston years ago, my initial impression was favorable. Instead of picturing tourists walking off the ships and adding burdensome congestion to our streets, I imagined wallets and pocketbooks strutting off the gangways in Disney-like animation belching forth reams of cash, while their otherwise human counterparts would spread the word about what a great destination Charleston had become.

Charleston is a port city, and the cruise business should be a welcome addition to the local economy. Why say “no” when there was opportunity to turn on the Southern charm, gratefully accept any and all financial reward and then be quickly done with the invasion as dictated by the timelines of the cruise schedule? It’s a win-win for everybody.

And I still feel that way, at least in the context of how things were several years ago. But seemingly overnight the number of scheduled berths has exploded, and so have justifiable concerns about the ramifications this may have for the future of our city.

When all these dire predictions of apocalyptic proportion started emerging about the cruise industry, I thought people were overreacting. As recently as a couple of weeks ago my family and I observed a massive cruise ship being eased away from her berth at sundown and marveled at this spectacular display of maritime engineering. The next day, while driving home from work across the James Island connector, I noted that there was already another ship in town, and for the first time took pause.

The battle to protect the delicate historical ambience of Charleston is never ending. When one brush fire is extinguished (or controlled), another (or more) will pop up in its place. There’s never any time for complacency, and people who fail to keep a vigilant eye will be blindsided by the changes in store for them.

Protecting history in Charleston has become such an ideological struggle that we may as well call it jihad. And yet this is a vibrant, living city, the success of which boils down to striking reasonable balance.

There’s nothing unreasonable about asking the South Carolina State Ports Authority and the cruise industry to come to written agreement with the city of Charleston over guidelines that would enhance the local economy while not destroying that which makes the city a popular destination to begin with. Nothing at all.

As former City Councilman Henry Fishburne and Dr. Jack Simmons pointed out in a recent op-ed piece, recommendations proposed in 2003 by the Cruise Ship Task Force for the city of Charleston when there were only 47 annual expected cruise ship arrivals have received scant attention. More than 100 berths are expected in 2011, and we’re having problems coming to written terms that would implement limiting (among other things) the total number of visits to 104, with no more than two per week. Really? Why?

I feel very strongly that this is a reasonable request, and agree with other suggested guidelines including coordinating ship calls with other major events to minimize auto and pedestrian congestion, a 12-mile shore limit for the discharge of certain pollutants, and the off-loading and recycling of garbage to help ensure no ocean disposal of waste.

In my opinion, the size of the ships is not so important as limiting the number of visits, but I do wonder about the trail of economic largesse. Who and what are the major beneficiaries (other than the Ports Authority), and how will this really impact you and me?

Are the 2,000-plus visitors that stream off these ships big spenders who will help the majority of us, or just the T-shirt vendors in the Market area? In other words, not to be totally crass, select people or entities will be making a lot of money off these arrangements. Where’s yours?

I welcome the cruise industry, within reason. I’d like to be able to drive over the James Island connector and marvel at the occasional cruise ship instead of having it morph in my mind’s eye into a sickening vulture picking away at Charleston’s historic flesh.

Because I’ve seen first hand what an overabundance of these ships can do. Anyone who has been to St. Thomas knows exactly what I’m talking about: multiple ships at port simultaneously laying waste to what must have been at one time a most charming harborside.

This cannot ever be allowed to happen to Charleston. All concerned parties need to sit down and come to agreements with the cruise industry that will ensure appropriate mutual benefit, not the unilateral damage that will surely occur if nothing is done.

Finishing on a note of levity, Ed Ball was going through some of his father’s old newspaper clippings and came across this one from The News & Courier, 1962:

“From a church in Georgia comes this story. There is Mr. Dick Tate who wants to run everything. Uncle Ro Tate wants to change everything. Aggie Tate and Erry Tate are twin sisters who stay in a stew. Then there is Hezzy Tate who objects to doing anything right now. Sister Emmy Tate wants to do everything just like someone else does it. Of course, cousin Devis Tate is rather ornery, and Uncle Poten Tate has delusions of grandeur.

“But there are some better members of the Tate family. There is brother Rehabilly Tate, who is always trying to help others. He has a daughter, Felissy Tate, who can always be counted on to work quietly and efficiently.”

Edward M. Gilbreth is a Charleston physician. Reach him at ed************@co*****.net.

Dana Beach, executive director of the Coastal Conservation League, sent Mary Edna this article, along with the following USA Today article debating this issue: http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post/2010/05/debate-are-cruise-ships-ruining-historic-charleston-/94662/1