Posts Tagged charleston cruise control

Free Shuttle to State Appeal Hearing 2/15/17

On February 4, 2017   /   Breaking News  
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Join us in Columbia for the State Appeal hearing!! Please sign up for the free shuttle….we must have a final head count by Saturday, February 11.

Click here to join us

Details:

Oral arguments in the cruise terminal state permit case before the SC Court of Appeals in Columbia, SC on February 15, at noon. A free shuttle has been organized by Charleston Communities for Cruise Control and the Coastal Conservation League to take those interested in being present to and from Columbia. A reservation is required so the appropriate size bus is reserved. Please do so via the link below before February 11!

This is an appeal of a decision by S.C. Administrative Law Judge R. K. Anderson III holding that the groups lacked “standing” to challenge the legality of permits for the proposed cruise terminal.

This is a major reason in having actual “bodies” there, showing that the groups are comprised of taxpaying citizens, and should be allowed to contest the permit!

Our attorneys contend on appeal that the ALC judge erred because, in fact, our groups and members have more than enough at stake to entitle us to an administrative hearing on whether the SC DHEC permit was unlawfully issued.

Letting the ALC’s decision stand would severely curtail the ability of neighboring citizens to defend their health and their property from unlawfully authorized pollution.

The argument is open to the public and you are encouraged to attend.  The Courthouse is located in the Calhoun State Office Building at 1220 Senate Street in Columbia.

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Cruise opponents see dark lining in Sunshine’s arrival

On March 22, 2015   /   Breaking News  
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Charleston residents battling the cruise ship industry say Carnival Cruise Lines’ plans to have another cruise ship depart from here next year is proof that their fight is a necessary one.

“I think we knew it was coming,” said Carrie Agnew, executive director of the Charleston Communities for Cruise Control, which has bought billboards and pursued legal action to torpedo the cruise industry’s growth here.

The addition of the Carnival Sunshine and its 3,000 potential passengers has reinforced Cruise Control’s message and already added to its mailing list, Agnew said.

“There are those who just don’t see the big picture and say, ‘Everything is fine now. Why should we be concerned?’ ” Agnew said. “So many people also have said, ‘Charleston is at a tipping point.’ I stood up at a meeting and said, ‘We’re not at a tipping point. We’ve tipped over,’ and now we’re adding more fuel to the fire.”

On Monday, Carnival Cruise Lines announced it will add five departures from Charleston next year for the Sunshine. Carnival’s Fantasy, which holds about 1,000 fewer passengers, will continue to call Charleston its home port.

The Sunshine will offer cruises of between two and 10 days between Charleston and ports in the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Antigua, Martinique, St. Kitts and San Juan.

State Ports Authority director Jim Newsome said the port will maintain its level of fewer than 104 cruise ship departures next year.

One of the biggest issues in Charleston’s yearslong cruise ship fight is fear that the city eventually will be overrun by larger ships carrying ever more passengers and calling on the city more often.

City and State Ports Authority officials say those concerns are unfounded, and they have agreed to limit cruise ships to no more than an average of two calls here a week, and no more than one at a time. Opponents want those voluntarily limits written into a law.

Cruise ship supporters have said the industry is an important part of the Lowcountry’s larger tourism economy, a source of jobs and a continuation of an activity that this port city has had from its earliest days.

Opponents said they don’t want to ban all cruise ships, but they want the authority to consider sites other than Union Pier, and sites farther from the city’s historic district, for its new cruise ship terminal. Legal wrangling over that site — the 60 acres between Market, Washington and Laurens streets and the harbor — has slowed the state’s plans to redevelop the blighted area.

Cruise opponents also said not enough is being done to address traffic congestion caused by ship visits, air pollution from smokestacks, noise from ship horns and public address systems, and the visual impact on the city’s historic skyline. They have filed legal challenges in both state and federal courts.

Blan Holman, managing attorney for the Charleston office of the Southern Environmental Law Center and a lawyer for the cruise ship opponents, said the news of the Sunshine’s visits here next year shows the cruise industry can get bigger in Charleston.

“And that just makes thorough review of a new, larger terminal more important than ever to make sure we examine all options for reducing pollution and traffic and impacts on families and neighborhoods,” he said.

Randy Pelzer, head of the Charles Towne Neighborhood’s cruise ship task force, said news of the Sunshine’s arrival doesn’t mean much in terms of current legal battles, “but I think it points out that residents aren’t consulted in terms of the larger number of cruise ships that impact them.”

“I was surprised there wasn’t any effort to notify the residents ahead of time, that we found out about it after it was a done deal,” he added, “but that’s the way it has been from the beginning.”

Reach Robert Behre at 937-5771.
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More container volume, new cruise ship for Port of Charleston

On March 22, 2015   /   Breaking News  
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The Port of Charleston is seeing an increase in both cargo and cruise ships.

Carnival Cruise Lines announced Monday that it will add five departures in 2016 for its Carnival Sunshine cruise ship. Those voyages will be in addition to departures by the Carnival Fantasy, which calls Charleston its home port.

Meanwhile, at the cargo docks, the port notched a 16.9 percent increase in the number of containers that moved through local terminals in February compared to the previous year, and Jim Newsome – president and CEO of the State Ports Authority – said Monday that he expects the total to top 1 million containers before the end of this fiscal year.

“February container volumes were particularly strong for a short month,” Newsome said following a meeting of the SPA’s board of directors. “Our import gains are reflective of a strengthening U.S. economy and population growth across the Southeast, while manufacturing in our state and region bolsters our export business. Loaded-box volumes last month were nearly completely balanced between imports and exports.”

What do you think?
What do you think about Carnival Cruise Lines adding more port calls in Charleston in 2016?
 The increase comes even as the port has maintained its productivity goals of an average of more than 41 container moves per ship each hour.

In the cruise news, the Carnival Sunshine is a larger ship than the Fantasy, carrying about 1,000 more passengers and crew. It will offer cruises of between two and 10 days and will sail to ports in the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Antigua, Martinique, St. Kitts and San Juan.

Christine Duffey, president of Carnival Cruise Lines, said in a statement that Carnival Sunshine will offer “an extraordinary array of guest features and facilities,” including upgraded dining and entertainment that was part of Carnival’s Fun Ship 2.0 modernization program initiated in 2011.

Even with the additional sailings, Newsome said the port will maintain its level of fewer than 100 cruise ship departures per year.

To date, cruise ship passenger counts are down 5 percent from the previous year — to 121,270 people — due to a pair of weather-related cancellations.

The SPA has recorded $123 million in revenue this fiscal year, up nearly 21 percent from the same period a year ago. Earnings have tripled to nearly $20 million during the same time period.

Newsome said the port is entering one of its strongest stretches historically — the period of March through May — and he expects continued growth in cargo as the fiscal year winds down June 30.

The SPA’s noncontainerized business also saw increases in February. The Port of Georgetown handled 15,520 tons last month and is 5 percent ahead of its plan for the fiscal year. In Charleston, the SPA is on course to meet its break-bulk tonnage goal with 58,685 tons handled in February.

In other action during Monday’s meeting:

The board approved a contract for routine maintenance dredging at the North Charleston Terminal, which typically occurs every 12 to 15 months to preserve a 50-foot depth for large containerships.

The board approved a design modification to the two super-post-Panamax cranes on order for the Wando Welch Terminal.

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Reach David Wren at 937-5550 or on Twitter at @David_Wren_

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Cruise ships, bars, bathrooms dominate public forum on Charleston tourism

On June 14, 2014   /   Breaking News  
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Whether or not Charleston’s tourism industry is at a “tipping point” and which areas of the industry are causing it were the central topics Thursday night at the Tourism Advisory Council’s public forum.

Many who lined up to offer their input rejected the city’s notion that the number of bars on upper King Street and Market Street had brimmed over their limit.

Jamie Price, a local developer who helped establish the monthly Second Sunday on King Street event, opposed the city’s proposed ordinance that would require future bars and restaurants in entertainment districts to close at midnight.

“This is a European-type city with a phenomenal night life,” Price said. “This is not what this city is about. This city is about life, and that’s what they’re taking away.”

Seaton Brown, an admissions counselor at the College of Charleston, said if patrons have to leave a bar before midnight “they won’t want to go home, they’ll want to go to the bars that are open until 2 a.m., which adds to the traffic and mobility problems that King Street is already suffering from.”

City Planner Tim Keane said that the growth of bars are stifling retailers on Upper King and that neighborhoods nearby need retail.

Other residents at the meeting said the “tipping point” of the tourism problems was on the other side of town.

Robert Ball, a physician and professor at C of C, said the biggest concern was the amount of soot emitted from cruise ships idling at the terminal.

“We are at a tipping point. We need to take action on … shore power for cruise ships,” he said. “I would urge the city to partner with SPA and Carnival to enact whatever you need to … to transform a line along the front of Union Pier where cruise ships will be docked to reduce health risks to our residents on the East side.”

Carrie Agnew, a resident of Legare Street who has long been an advocate for cruise ship regulations, went a step further and questioned whether a larger cruise ship terminal should be built at the edge of the peninsula’s historic district.

“This city has tipped over,” she said. “I do not see how we could have a terminal that is twice the size of what we have now with twice the number of parking spaces and not have a lot more problems with tourism. Why is it being placed directly next to a historic neighborhood?”

Keane and Riley also got an earful, not for the first time, about the need for more bike corrals along heavily trafficked streets, and more public bathrooms.

Alfred Ray, a longtime tour guide, said visitors often need bathroom breaks while touring historic areas such as White Point Gardens, and suggested that the private bathrooms at Hazel Parker Playground on East Bay Street be opened to the public.

“We have a public facility paid for with public money which has private bathrooms. Is that even legal?” Ray said.

Keane said Thursday’s forum was the final “input-gathering session” of the Tourism Advisory Council’s process to update the city’s Tourism Management Plan. The council has also received feedback from the downtown neighborhood associations and it has conducted surveys about residential concerns with tourism.

Reach Abigail Darlington at 937-5906

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Judge: Opponents have standing to challenge state permit for Charleston cruise terminal

On December 3, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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By BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press
Updated: December 03, 2013 – 3:16 pm

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Charleston neighborhood, conservation and preservation groups may challenge a state permit for a $35 million South Carolina passenger cruise terminal, a state administrative law judge has ruled.

In a 16-page ruling on Monday, Chief Administrative Law Judge Ralph K. Anderson III rejected a South Carolina Ports Authority motion to dismiss a challenge to a state Department of Health and Environmental Control permit.

The DHEC permit certified that putting added pilings beneath an old riverfront warehouse so it can be renovated as a new terminal complies with state coastal regulations.

The permit challenge is one of three ongoing legal fights involving the city’s cruise industry.

The Ports Authority in July asked Anderson to dismiss the challenge to the state permit, saying the pilings have not yet been installed and so there has been no injury to the plaintiffs and they have no standing to appeal. Attorneys also argued the appeal should be dismissed because whether cruises operate out of Charleston is a political question, not one for the administrative law court.

Anderson noted the plaintiffs, who include six local groups, allege the permit will allow more cruise ships with the pollution, traffic and health impacts that accompany them.

“At this stage of the proceedings, the court finds that petitioners have sufficiently alleged that the organizations have standing,” he concluded, but added he would consider the larger issue of whether cruises should be allowed at all.

“The case before this court involves the discrete matter of whether the permit issued to the Ports Authority complies with state law,” he wrote.

A hearing is set for next month.

The question of whether the cruise industry is a public nuisance is now before the state Supreme Court. The justices heard arguments last month and have not indicated when they might rule.

The third legal challenge is to federal permit for the terminal pilings. A federal judge ruled in September that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not study the issue adequately and tossed out the permit. The Ports Authority and the Corps have appealed that decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia

Terminal opponents say they want limits on cruises so they don’t overwhelm the city. Supporters say the city will only be a niche cruise market and the industry is already being appropriately regulated.

(Story distributed by The Associated Press)

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SC Group Teams With Cruise Groups in Fla., Italy – The New York Times

On November 5, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 4, 2013 at 3:29 PM ET

CHARLESTON, S.C. — A citizens group from Charleston has formed a coalition with similar groups in Venice, Italy, and Key West, Fla., to work for regulations protecting smaller historic port cities from the congestion and pollution that can accompany cruise calls.

“The only way we can do anything is if we work together and if we shout together,” Carrie Agnew, executive director of Charleston Communities for Cruise Control, said Monday. “By working together and by joining forces and sending out the same messages everywhere we can have that much more credibility, we can have that much more reach.”

The Charleston group will work with a group called No Big Boats in Venice and the Key West Committee for Responsible Tourism. The size and number of cruise ships has been a subject of controversy in both cities in recent years and “Charleston is sort of on a precipice,” Agnew said.

Agnew says her group does not want to ban the cruise industry. “What we are looking for are reasonable regulations for port cities,” she said.

The Charleston group has proposed a Cruise Ship Code of Conduct that includes a ban on ships with a capacity of more than 3,000 from regularly visiting the city, limiting cruise calls in the city to two a week and requiring ships to use onshore power or burn low sulfur fuel while idling at dockside.

Supporters of the Charleston’s cruise industry say the city will only be a niche market and that the cruise trade is being appropriately handled. They say it creates jobs and is an economic boost for the city.

Carnival Cruise Lines’ 2,056-passenger liner Fantasy has home-ported in Charleston for more than three years. Before that, cruises made port calls, but no ships were based in the city.

The expanded cruise industry and the South Carolina State Ports Authority’s plans for a $35 million cruise terminal has resulted in lawsuits by environmental, preservation and neighborhood groups in state and federal court and a permit challenge in state administrative law court.

On Nov. 19, the state Supreme Court hears arguments in a lawsuit alleging that cruises in the city are a public nuisance and violate city zoning ordinances.

Meanwhile, the South Carolina State Ports Authority is appealing a federal judge’s decision tossing out a permit to install pilings allowing the terminal to be built. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel ruled earlier in September there was no adequate review of the effects on the city’s historic district. Another challenge to a state permit for those pilings will be heard in administrative law court early next year.

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Now there’s an icon, Charleston.

On October 27, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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The Oct. 20 Post and Courier Commentary page hit home on two counts: Alan Farago’s call for cruise regulations and Clemson President James Barker’s vision of the proposed Clemson Architecture Center at Meeting and George streets.

Having just returned from my fifth river cruise, with a post-stay in Prague, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Farago.

The continuing unabated growth of cruise tourism will surely affect Charleston’s character, its quality of life and the environment.

The Charleston peninsula is simply too small to accommodate mammoth ships and hordes of passengers arriving and departing via personal automobiles.

Building the terminal in downtown Charleston would be a huge mistake.

Why can’t Mayor Joe Riley see that the sensible location for the cruise terminal is at the shipyard in North Charleston or across the river in Mount Pleasant?

Cruise passengers are accustomed to being bused to the day’s venue, often at some distance. It’s part of the adventure.

And to Mr. Barker’s desire for the proposed Clemson Architecture Center to become an architectural landmark in the city, I suggest he go back to the drawing board.

The low-level expanse of glass will quickly fill with potted plants, cluttered desks, dangling wires and the backs of computers — not a pretty view from the outside-in.

State of the art it may currently be, but an inspiring icon it will never be.

Let Clemson design an eye-popping, jaw-dropping, aah-arousing building that will have every tourist snapping a photo and buying a postcard, such as Prague’s amazing Dancing House completed in 1996 on a historical site destroyed in WWII. Now there’s an icon, Charleston.

Rose Hutchinson

Indigo Lane

Goose Creek

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Federal judge denies extension in cruise terminal lawsuit

On October 18, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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The federal government shutdown is not cause for an extension in a lawsuit challenging a $35 million cruise terminal the State Ports Authority wants to open in downtown Charleston. In a recent ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel said the shutdown doesn’t give him the authority to change a deadline coming up this week in the federal complaint. The lawsuit is challenging an Army Corps of Engineers permit for the proposed passenger building at Union Pier. The Army Corps asked Gergel this month to extend Wednesday’s deadline to respond to his order requiring the agency to go back and review the project more thoroughly. The Army Corps said in court records that the federal shutdown has caused a lapse in funding at the U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing it in the lawsuit. The Coastal Conservation League and the Preservation Society of Charleston filed the case after the Army Corps issued a permit allowing five pilings to be driven on the waterfront. The pilings are needed to help transform an existing warehouse into the new passenger building.

The opposition groups have said the agency didn’t take into account the impact on historic properties. Gergel agreed. In September, he ordered the Army Corps to redo the study with a more extensive review of the effects on the environment and historic properties. The ports authority, which has joined the lawsuit as a defendant, has been seeking to relocate its cruise terminal to the north end of Union Pier from the south end for about three years. The complaint before Gergel is one of three lawsuits targeting cruise-ship operations in downtown Charleston.

Reach Tyrone Richardson at 937-5550 and follow him on Twitter @tyrichardsonPC.

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Don’t ruin city, letter to the editor 10/5/13

On October 5, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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Don’t ruin city

I live in Houston, and have made numerous trips to Charleston to be treated time after time to the most pleasant, lovely, historically fascinating, gentle and delightful city in America. I have lodged in hotels downtown, in private homes, and at Middleton Place, and dined in many of your fine restaurants. I cannot say enough about the attractiveness of Charleston.
You are about to ruin this idyllic city with cruise ships. You have a sophisticated city with much appeal to thoughtful travelers who don’t care to jostle on crowded sidewalks with hordes of tourists whose main interest is buying another trinket or a beer.

For the sake of Charleston, don’t let cruise ships make your city a tawdry place. Keep it what it has been for centuries, an historical magnet for the discerning visitor who comes to Charleston for several days, and sometimes weeks.

We spend real money in your fine hotels and restaurants, and some of us may eventually choose to live in Charleston. Don’t spoil it with cruise ships. If you do, we won’t come back, and a treasure will be lost.

Christian N. Seger

Ivanhoe Street

Houston, Texas

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Power Struggle: You Cruise, You Lose!

On September 27, 2013   /   Breaking News  
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As taken from The Post and Courier, by Frank Wooten:

Shoreside power to the cruise ships!

That variation on “Power to the people!” won’t generate a rallying cry for Charlestonians demanding that cruise ships use shoreside power when docked here.

But that contentious issue is still sparking hard feelings.

As plugged-in colleague Bo Petersen reported on our front page Wednesday, getting electricity to a cruise ship that “switches off its engine in port to keep from burning polluting fuel” requires an “outlet that zings enough juice to light up several thousand homes.”

However, the venerable Carnival Fantasy, which home-ports at the State Ports Authority’s cruise terminal on the south end of Union Pier, isn’t equipped for shoreside power.

Our story also reported that what “started this whole mess and continues to drive it is toxic black exhaust from the cruise ship smokestacks at dock as the engines provide the ship’s electric power.”

And that powers much of the opposition to the proposed new $35 million SPA terminal at the north end of Union Pier.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley is on board with SPA President/CEO Jim Newsome for that plan, which includes an extensive — and expensive — waterfront redevelopment beyond the new terminal. Both men stress that you can’t have one (that grand redevelopment) without the other (that swell new terminal).

The Coastal Conservation League and Preservation Society of Charleston are among the groups challenging the terminal construction permit in court.

Some folks see the new terminal and its accompanying redevelopment as needed economic-engine boosters in what is, after all, our Port City.

Some folks question why the city gives cruise ships a virtually free regulatory ride — and why those massive motors should keep belching unhealthy emissions while those vessels are docked.

Some dignified downtown folks are aghast at the unseemly spectacle of cruise passengers clad in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops roaming freely about our Holy City.

Hazardous voyages

Enough about that divisive power debate for now.

What powers cruisers our way in the first place?

From Carnival’s web site:

“Give in to the genteel feel of the old South on Carnival cruises from Charleston, South Carolina. This is a gracious city of antebellum homes and sprawling plantations, best appreciated from the comfort of a horse-drawn carriage. The city’s unique Low country cuisine and dozens of delicious restaurants make it a southern foodie destination.”

Gee, and we genteel types lucky enough to live in these parts can do all of that without packing ourselves like sardines with strangers on a big boat (actually, a ship).

Most of us who live here even know that Lowcountry is one word.

Anyway, regardless of your present location or desired destination, why risk the ordeals endured by far too many cruisers?

Three months ago, Carnival figuratively threw co-founder Micky Arison overboard from his 35-year job as CEO.

From an Associated Press dispatch: “Arison came under fire during Carnival’s bad publicity earlier in the year when a string of its cruise ships suffered through mechanical problems and fires. The most dramatic of them was the Carnival Triumph where passengers were stranded at sea for five days as toilets backed up and air conditioners failed. There were media reports of raw sewage seeping through walls and carpets.”

We non-cruisers drew fresh validation from those gruesome plumbing details.

Fortunately, though, you can vicariously savor high-seas romance without smelling any broken-down cruise-ship stench.

Just watch vintage reruns of “The Love Boat” online.

Exciting and new

That 1977-87 ABC diversion features a future U.S. House member (Iowa Republican Fred Grandy as ship’s purser Burl “Gopher” Smith) and guest-star rosters of show-biz has-beens (including future California Republican House member Sonny Bono as a rock singer who falls in love with a deaf woman).

Despite a generally breezy tone, the series’ subtle subtexts frequently explore expanding social consciousness.

A DVD synopsis of my favorite episode, from 1978:

“A beauty contest on board ship divides a couple (Maureen McCormick, Bobby Sherman). A reporter (Vicki Lawrence) falls for a disgraced congressman (Dick Van Patten).”

They don’t make TV shows like that anymore.

But they do still make disgraced congressmen.

And they make cruise ships that can use shoreside power.

Frank Wooten is assistant editor of The Post and Courier. His email is wooten@postandcourier.com.

 

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