Click to check it out – her research and findings are quite interesting: http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A162278

But the suit is still alive and kicking in the state’s court system. “It’s been about exactly two years since we filed the case,” says Blan Holman, the SELC attorney representing the Preservation Society of Charleston, the Coastal Conservation League, and the Ansonborough and Charlestowne neighborhood associations. “We think it’s pretty obviously not frivolous.”

Because the cruise line now docks its Fantasy ship in Charleston, the plaintiffs reasoned Carnival should be subject to city laws. And while the S.C. Supreme Court threw out three of the 10 claims the SELC had originally made in its suit regarding noise, sign, and environmental ordinances, the fight is far from over. As the CRBJ reports, the Supreme Court has asked attorneys on both sides of the case to file new briefs on two remaining issues.

When the suit was originally filed against Carnival in June 2011, the City of Charleston and the SPA immediately intervened. “They all quickly asked the state Supreme Court not to hear an appeal, but to take the case away from the local judge and hear it in the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction,” Holman explains. The court consented in early 2012 and assigned a special referee, Judge Clifford Newman, to the case.

Newman considered the 10 claims made in the original complaint that fall into three categories: ordinance, nuisance, and environmental. They covered everything from city laws to noise complaints to accusations that Carnival is discharging in state waters without state permits.

But at a hearing last summer, Judge Newman recommended to the S.C. Supreme Court that all claims other than the nuisance ones be dismissed. His argument was based on his opinion that Charleston’s zoning laws can only apply to structures. Because the Carnival Fantasy isn’t permanently located on land or, Newman concluded, substantially attached to land, it isn’t technically a structure. “But he said issues of whether or not someone’s use of their property is reasonable [is] not really a legal question, it’s more of a fact question, so it can’t be dismissed,” Holman adds.

Last week, the S.C. Supreme Court agreed with Newman on dismissing the noise, sign, and environmental permitting complaints. “We did appeal his view on the environmental permitting claim, and so we’re disappointed to see that claim dismissed,” Holman says. “But we think the seven remaining claims, which are ordinance claims and the nuisance claims, they are seven strong claims and this case is very much alive.”

More importantly, the Supreme Court brought up a new issue in the case: Does the City of Charleston have the authority to regulate a cruise operation based in Charleston?

“That’s really a much different question,” Holman says. “It’s a question that goes to the nature of the city’s authority, period. It goes to issues of how far the city’s authority can go when there are federal regulations in place and some limits on local authority.”

Holman and the plaintiffs believe that the city does have the jurisdiction to regulate what the ships do within city limits, and he says he hopes the City of Charleston will preserve its power over these kinds of activities.

“The cruise lines are notorious for not paying any taxes and not being very heavily regulated,” he says. “I think that the goal of the Carnival suit is to see that they’re treated like other businesses, because in Charleston we regulate and have standards for all manner, be it pedicabs or horse-drawn carriages or bus tours or what you can do to your house.”

And, he adds, those standards are key to the economic success of the peninsula and the metropolitan area. Basically, the plaintiffs just want Carnival to play by the rules. If the lawsuit succeeds, Holman hopes the cruise ship industry can continue in Charleston, but in a way that doesn’t affect the livability and health of the community or detract from other parts of the tourist industry.

The Post and Courier reports that the SELC and Carnival Cruise Lines have 30 days to submit new briefs addressing the new allegations.

“The recent order issued by the Supreme Court in the cruise ship case is encouraging because it brings into clear focus the pivotal issues of the case,” Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. told the City Paper in a statement. “And in light of the briefing schedule set by the court, I am optimistic that a decision will be rendered very soon.”

In the end, if the court decides the city does have the power to regulate cruise ships, Holman is hopeful they’ll take advantage.

“We are optimistic that when the city attorneys actually have the opportunity to drill down on the issue that they will, as has been their history, that the city attorney’s office would actively and aggressively defend the City of Charleston’s authority to control activities within its limits,” he says.

Carnival Cruise Lines’ public relations department said it was unable to comment on the case, and a call the City Paper made to the SPA was not returned.

Taken from Charleston City Paper, article by Susan Cohen

View article here: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/a-lawsuit-against-carnival-cruise-lines-continues/Content?oid=4650989

A Savannah City Council workshop has been scheduled for June 25, and the study will be made public at that time, city spokesman Bret Bell.

The city council awarded Miami-based BEA Architects a contract to perform the study in September. It’s being divided into two phases, and the portion of the study recently given to city officials cost $197,500 to evaluate the sites.

The findings are necessary to obtain U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval and permits for construction. Results may eliminate certain sites or verify that all three sites, which have not been made public, could be used, the Savannah newspaper reported.

City Councilman Tom Bordeaux had cast the only vote against the study.

Bordeaux said he didn’t think spending millions of dollars on the terminal would be a good investment for the city, considering the amount of time cruise passengers would spend in Savannah.

Bordeaux said he also worried that the terminal would be abandoned if the industry experienced tough financial times, especially since Charleston and Jacksonville, Fla., already have cruise docks.

“Savannah would be the last in and first out,” Bordeaux told the newspaper.

A 2011 report from BEA Architects estimated that Savannah could attract 100,000 cruise visitors a year by investing $18 million, and 300,000 more if it spends another $50 million, though the latter projections have been disputed, the newspaper said.

In downtown Charleston, Carnival Cruise Lines has offered has offered regularly scheduled cruises almost year-round since 2010, when the company permanently based its 2,056-passenger ship Fantasy at a berth on Union Pier Terminal, near the City Market.

The arrival of that business has triggered a backlash among some downtown Charleston residents and preservation groups over the increased traffic congestion, noise and air pollution. Three cruise-related lawsuits are working their way through the court system.

View article here: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130617/PC16/130619398/1009/savannah-studying-cruises-won-x2019-t-share-study-yet-with-public&source=RSS

Press Release June 11, 2013

More Info:Balancing Cruise Ship Growth & Charleston Charm

Charleston, SC –  The South Carolina Supreme Court has issued an order allowing a case involving Carnival Cruise Lines’ operations in historic Charleston to proceed forward for further briefing. While the Court dismissed three of the claims against Carnival – regarding noise and sign ordinances, and an environmental permitting claim – it did not adopt a Special Referee’s earlier recommendation to dismiss the remaining seven ordinance and nuisance claims.  Blan Holman, managing attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Charleston office, issued the following statement:

“We are pleased that our seven strongest claims remain and look forward to showing that Carnival cannot ignore the rules every other business plays by in making Charleston a great city.

We look forward to continuing to act on behalf of citizens to ensure that Carnival follows local laws that protect the city’s healthy environment, treasured historic assets, and booming tourism industry – an industry that depends on balancing Charleston’s unique historic charm with sensible cruise ship operations.” 

As cruise ship traffic has exploded in the heart of Charleston’s historic district in recent years – growing from 33 dockings in 2009 to 89 in 2011, due mostly to the Carnival Fantasy –citizens have demanded that cruise ship operations adhere to existing standards to manage traffic, pollution, and large crowds.  Charleston has thrived through the years by applying these standards to homeowners and all manner of businesses, from hoteliers to rickshaws.

After Charleston City officials claimed to have no power over cruise operations, SELC filed suit in state courts on behalf of neighborhoods and conservation groups to establish that Carnival is indeed subject to local laws that protect the city’s healthy environment and job-creating historic assets. The Supreme Court has asked for additional briefing on whether Carnival is subject to Charleston’s local authority.  Holman said that is a core issue in the case, adding:

“We are hopeful that the city of Charleston will agree that it has the power – and responsibility – to oversee a cruise operations based in Charleston, as the Carnival Fantasy is. The City of Charleston has exerted its authority to safeguard the harbor and the surrounding community for hundreds of years. It would be a shame if officials now abandon Charleston’s waterfront all for the Carnival Fantasy.”

The plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case are the Historic Ansonborough Neighborhood Association, the Charlestowne Neighborhood Association, the Coastal Conservation League, and the Preservation Society of Charleston.

In other proceedings, briefing continues in federal court concerning a permit granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a new cruise terminal in Charleston.  By characterizing the $35 million new terminal as a “maintenance” project, the Corps authorized the S.C. State Ports Authority’s terminal with no public notice or consideration of ways to reduce impacts on federally-protected historic sites and the environment.  SELC represents concerned citizen groups seeking open permit review so that options for harmonizing cruise operations with existing businesses and neighborhoods can be fully evaluated.

Visit http://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185437447/calif-law-to-require-ships-to-cut-pollution to listen to the story

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Two ports, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, handle almost half of all of the consumer goods being shipped into the United States. Together, these two ports are also the single largest polluter in Southern California, a region famous for its smog.

NPR’s Kirk Siegler reports on a new California law that will soon require some of the largest diesel-guzzling ships to kill their engines and plug in to shore power at the docks.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Shipping is a dirty business and it’s hard to regulate. Ships register in distant countries, they burn dirty bunker fuel thousands of miles off the coasts. And when they get into port, these massive vessels that are four football fields long, can’t just shut down when they unload their cargo for three days. See, aboard its more floating city than ship, with plumbing systems, lights, computers, climate-controlled containers.

RENE MOILANEN: And typically they’re running their auxiliary engines that entire time. It’s essentially like leaving a car idling in front of your driveway.

SIEGLER: On a drizzly morning, Port of Long Beach environmental planner Renee Moilanen stands on the slippery deck of a small patrol boat; a humbling place beneath the 20-story high red cranes unloading cargo. She says requiring the vessel above us to shut off its diesel and plug into electricity is the emissions equivalent of taking 33,000 cars off the road for each day they do it.

MOILANEN: So if we can reduce those emissions occurring at berth, we can make significant progress in reducing health risks for the local community.

SIEGLER: Ship emissions are just one component though of a huge spectrum of environmental problems at the ports. And until recently, they’ve taken a backseat to bitter fights over pollution from all the trucks and trains that move the cargo out of here. But shore power is one big piece of a broader air quality plan; some of it, the ports have done voluntarily, some by court order, but all in response to the alarmingly high rates of asthma and cancer detected among people in the mostly poor, minority neighborhoods down wind of the two ports.

MAYOR BOB FOSTER: Years ago, when we were putting this plan in place, you know, I was quoted many times as saying, you know, we’re not going to have, you know, kids get asthma or cancer in our city, so that someone in Kansas can get a cheaper television set.

SIEGLER: Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster. His city owns some of the port, a huge economic engine for this region. But he straddles a fine line between port booster and public health advocate.

FOSTER: The ships are just sort of the last remaining big ticket item on pollution. I think this will – well, I know, this will be a much healthier environment. And we’ll still have a robust economy of really good jobs. I think this is the template for the rest of the world.

SIEGLER: But for now, California is the only government in the world to mandate shore power. And there are concerns the less-regulated East Coast ports could poach business once the Panama Canal is widened to accommodate larger vessels. Some shipping lines have grumbled about having to spend on average $1.5 million to retrofit their vessels, just to do business in one state.

It’s just the two cables that we’re looking at?

MOILANEN: Yeah. Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SIEGLER: Don’t over-think it.

MOILANEN: No.

SIEGLER: Back on the patrol boat, the port’s Renee Moilanen points out, what look like two giant extension cords. They plunge over the side of a vessel owned by the Matson Line. It was one of the first here to plug into shore power ahead of the mandate. The cables disappear under the wharf, which the port recently electrified.

MOILANEN: It looks far less impressive than it actually is. The technology and the engineering behind it is very complicated.

SIEGLER: And expensive, and just one step in the massive effort to clean up one of the largest sources of pollution in a region with some of the worst air in the country.

Kirk Siegler, NPR News.

Since 2010 the 2,000-passenger Carnival Cruise ship Fantasy has been based in Charleston at a terminal, which, according to the Post & Courier, is now considered old and outdated. Under debate is whether a new, $35 million cruise ship terminal should be built.

Read more. 

Imagine yourself reclined on a cruise ship, sipping piña coladas, and leisurely moving through the ocean to the next stop along your week-long journey. What could be more idyllic?

Now, imagine the thick clouds of smoke, the swarms of tourists and all of the noise that cruise ships bring to port cities. That’s the experience that a group of homeowners in Charleston, South Carolina associate with these gigantic ships docking in their quaint, historic downtown.

They don’t want the city to expand its cruise terminal — at least not in the historic district, where some buildings date back to the 1700′s.

But the City of Charleston is doing all it can to push back, saying that millions of dollars worth of tourist dollars are at stake.

It’s one issue that mirrors some of the complex problems that arise with an expanding cruise line industry. This debate has grown more traction in the wake of Carnival Cruise Lines’ Triumph’s on-board fire caught fire last week. Reporter Kim Severson, at our partner The New York Times, wrote about the growing pushback against the cruiseline industry in coastal cities around the country.

• Not in My Port The New York Times

CHARLESTON, S.C. — In this Southern coastal city that runs on history and hospitality, a raucous civic debate belies a genteel veneer.

Like several communities that hug the nation’s coastline, Charleston is struggling to balance the economic benefits of cruise ships against their cultural and environmental impact.

Last week’s debacle aboard Carnival Cruise Lines’ Triumph, in which an engine fire stranded 4,200 people in the Gulf of Mexico for five days, has done little to deter those civic leaders who believe that building a new $35 million cruise terminal will be a great boon for this port city.

But for people like Jay Williams, a homeowner in the historic district who writes a blog for Charleston Communities for Cruise Control, a preservationist group, the nightmare on the Triumph is one more piece of evidence in the case against a fast-growing form of travel. “Cruise ships are sardine cans packed with passengers and crew, susceptible to horrific accidents that instantly can put thousands at risk for their lives,” he wrote after the episode.

Cruising has never been more popular or affordable, with its mix of easy travel, exotic locales and onboard amenities that include cooking schools and simulated surfing. In 2012, cruise ships carried 20 million passengers, the majority of them from the United States. With 14 new cruise ships entering the water in 2014, the number of passengers is expected to increase by as much as 8 percent.

But on the shores of the nation’s most charming cities and towns, the relationship is complicated.

In Key West, Fla., voters will decide this fall whether to spend $3 million toward widening a channel that leads to the city’s ports, where 350 cruise ships arrive each year. A deeper channel would allow a new, larger class of cruise ships to dock. Business owners and residents worry that the dredging would hurt fragile coral reefs and overwhelm the town.

In Alaska, state lawmakers are expected to decide Wednesday whether to roll back tough wastewater standards mandated by voters in 2006. If the proposal, backed by Gov. Sean Parnell, is approved, the 36 cruise ships that travel Alaska’s waters each year will be able to discharge waste water with less treatment than it currently receives.

Michelle Ridgway, a marine ecologist who serves on the state science panel for cruise ships, watched as Alaska cruise ship traffic grew to about a million people a year and changed her hometown of Ketchikan.

“The pulp mill closed and the place turned into Disneyland,” she said.

Charleston’s cruise ship debate seems small by comparison, but it is deeply felt.

The Fantasy — at 23 years old, the oldest ship in the Carnival fleet — has been based in Charleston since 2010. It slides into port once or twice a week. Some 2,000 passengers, most of whom have driven in from nearby states, walk through an aging terminal, climb aboard and sail off to the Bahamas or the Caribbean for a few days or a week. Other cruise ships sometimes stop to visit the city, too.

The South Carolina Ports Authority wants to build a new ship terminal that port officials say will handle only one ship at a time, but the frequency of ships could increase.

Those dedicated to preserving a section of town whose buildings date to the 1700s worry that a new terminal will bring a damaging concentration of tourist traffic and larger cruise vessels.

“I can’t believe they are doing this to Charleston,” said Carolyn Dietrich, who lives just a few blocks from the terminal. “I can hear the announcements from my house,” she said. “And that black smoke. It just tumbles out of that smokestack. You should see the dust in my car.”

Port officials point out that cruise ships are a tiny slice of the city’s shipping traffic. More than 1,700 vessels use the port every year, and only 85 of those are cruise ships. And cruise traffic, they say, is worth $37 million a year to the region.

But this city takes its preservation seriously. The specter of more cruise ships has spawned three state and federal lawsuits and has placed the city’s historic district on the World Monument Fund’s list of most endangered cultural sites.

The intensity of opposition has the usually unflappable mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., baffled and angry. “This thing is hard to understand because it’s not logical,” he said. “This is not a theme park. One of the authentic parts of Charleston is that we are an international port.”

He points out that the city will get a new waterfront park, and that it has a voluntary agreement with the port that caps the number of ships a year at 104.

People wary of cruise ship traffic want the limit to be legally binding. They also want the ships to plug into electrical power on shore, a newer technology only some ships have. (Shore power exists at some Alaska and California ports and is in the process of being adapted at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.)

But mostly, they want the port to consider two other spots along the waterfront, which the mayor and port officials say are unworkable.

Not that cruise ship passengers worry too much about the impact their vacations have on local communities. Battles over local or federal legislation, like the Clean Cruise Ship Act, which died in Congress in 2010, are not as interesting as which name-brand chef is going to open a restaurant on board.

“Our audience doesn’t really respond to the municipal-level battles or the environmental stuff,” said Dan Askin, senior editor at cruisecritic.com, a consumer Web site dedicated to cruise ships.

The cruise ship industry has less comprehensive oversight than the airline industry, which is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Ships fly under foreign flags and their parent companies are incorporated overseas, leaving regulation to a patchwork of federal, state and, rarely, local laws.

That puts more responsibility on local communities that host cruise ships, said Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels program director at Friends of the Earth, an environmental group. “They need to not just listen to the cruise ship industry or assume regulations are in place,” she said. “They need to talk to other cities that have gone through this.”

A cautionary tale might be found in Mobile, Ala., where Carnival Cruise Lines hauled the lifeless Triumph last week. Mobile would gladly take any cruise ship traffic at all. The port and the city romanced Carnival Cruise Lines for years. In 2004, after the city borrowed $20 million to build a terminal, Carnival finally agreed to the relationship and based a ship there.

In 2007, Carnival named Mobile its port of the year. Things were going so well that in 2009, Mobile spent $2.6 million on a new gangway. Two years later, Carnival left.

The location just wasn’t popular enough, it said, and rising fuel costs made Mobile a less efficient port than New Orleans.

“It’s a mobile fleet so they can move to a place that is giving them the best deal,” said Mr. Askin. “That’s good for the companies, but bad things start to happen to cities when ships bail out.”

Source

Kalin Hill/Kalin Hill, via Associated Press

“Weary and miserable, sickened by the stench of sewage,” the last of more than 4,200 passengers and crew hobbled off the Carnival “Triumph” Friday, “after tugboats lugged it to the Alabama shore and finally brought an end to a five-day floating nightmare,” “the agony prolonged by a snapped cable connecting the ship to one of four tugboats,” NBC News reported early today.(1)  ”In the sweltering heat, passengers set up tent cities on outdoor decks, hoping to catch a breeze or simply unwilling to endure the stench emanating from inside.”  Other reports tell of tempers flying, overflowing toilets, “squishy carpets,” long lines for food, sickened passengers, children “hysterically crying” and “sewage running down the walls and floors.”(2) “The ship’s afloat, so is the sewage,” said a passenger.

The horrific five-day ordeal that began Sunday when a fire erupted on the 13-year-old Carnival “Triumph” cruise ship that knocked out power, leaving it adrift in the Gulf “without propulsion, with little running water, less electricity, and utterly bereft of sanitation.”(3)  Passengers alternately endured 90-degree heat and cold rainstorms, many forced out of their cabins as the inoperable toilets and broken air-conditioning systems made the stench and running sewage unbearable.

Under conditions described as “vile,” “filthy,” and “horrible,” one passenger texted, “Room smells like an outhouse. Cold water only, toilets haven’t work in 3 1/2 days…”It’s 4:00 am. Can’t sleep…it’s cold & I’m starting to get sick.”  Another passenger, Renee Shaner, told the AP, “People have gotten food poisoning. Old people have fallen and hurt themselves.”  Another passenger reported “terrible” conditions, standing in line three hours just to get a hot dog, being forced to urinate in the shower, and using plastic bags to go to the bathroom.(4)

Yet as the crises worsened, Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill merely called conditions on the ship “challenging.”(5)   Appearing under-informed, perhaps he needed a thesaurus to adequately describe the catastrophe on-board.  Days later, he more profusely apologized.

“The problems of the “Triumph” fit into a larger picture, too, one painted by a booming cruise industry that increasingly is priced for the middle class but that critics say has become too large too fast and needs stronger, more consistent oversight,” a New York Times story written by Kim Severson and other reporters noted, adding, “[w]ith the industry’s popularity has come concerns over safety, pollution and the impact of thousands of tourists.  Communities including Key West, Fla.; Sitka, Alaska; and Charleston, S.C., are weighing the economic gains against the cultural and environmental impact of an industry with ships that can accommodate more than 6,000 people.  ’There are more ships out there, so we are seeing a higher number of incidents like this, and that is not good for the cruise industry,’ said Ross Klein, a faculty member at Memorial University in Newfoundland who has testified before Congress on the safety and environmental impact of cruise ships.”(6)

Inopportunely and only days before the “Triumph’s” horror show, South Carolina State Ports CEO Jim Newsome emailed, “Cruise ships, like any of the other ships calling our port, represent maritime commerce activity that is essential to supporting our local maritime community.”  Codswallop, Mr. Newsome.  Cruise ships aren’t like “any of the other ships,” they aren’t essential, and they represent only a small fraction of port revenues.

Cruise ships are sardine cans packed with passengers and crew, susceptible to horrific accidents that instantly can put thousands at risk for their lives.  Although everyone has seen the sunken Carnival-owned Costa Concordia that took 33 passenger lives, few know that there have been 79 cruise ship fires since l990.  Former Carnival Cruise Lines senior executive Jay Herring admits, “There are so many moving parts and things that can go wrong.”(7)  In the case of the Carnival “Triumph,” they did.  The NY Daily News wrote that “the interior portions of the 14-story ship have been turned into a sweltering, gut churning sauna far removed from the vision of the boat as ’24 hours of fun a day’ that the company promotes on its website.”  One person related: “It’s like a bunch of savages on there.”(8)   We’re unlikely to find out all that may have happened.

These people getting off the “Triumph” in Mobile are sick, some may be infected with nanoviruses; the crew (given credit by many passengers for their efforts) may be in worse shape; and certainly the ship itself is filthy and contaminated.  These cruise ships, owned by foreign owned corporations, are not subject to the rigorous inspections required of ships registered in the US, their crews are also not given the same working condition protections, and, in fact, the Bahamian authorities will lead this accident investigation. “The result is that cruise ships are largely unregulated,” says maritime lawyer James Walker on CNN’s website.(9)  Yet the potential for sickness, viruses and disease coming ashore is another important reason that cruise terminals must be isolated–kept apart and isolated for the safety of concentrated, general population areas.  It’s not just the taxis, the provisioning trucks, the toxic soot and continuous noise, the parking, pollution and traffic problems, the requirements for ship and food safety, dangerous weapons and border security–the health of our residents is another reason why Charleston’s proposed large-scale cruise terminal must not be built at Union Pier downtown.