Monterey finds banning cruise ships from National Marine Sanctuary “not possible”
With more than a dozen cruise ships expected to make their way to the Monterey Bay the rest of the year, the city of Monterey looked into whether they could prohibit large ships from docking at the National Marine Sanctuary.
The short answer: No. And even the regulations they can place are limited.
In a report by the city attorney, since the ship is out of the city’s jurisdiction, a ban isn’t possible.
What does help is the amount of state/federal agencies making sure ships are up to code and that boat operators are behaving.
The city does need to have staff on-hand to process those arriving from cruise ships on shore boats, but even that is under the guidance of the Department of Homeland Security.
“The tidelands grant limits the extent to which the city chooses not to accept the shore boats from cruise ships at the public dock,” says Deputy City Attorney, Ryan Donlin. “It also requires the city to make tidelands available for navigation purposes.”
But what else can the city regulate in regards to cruise ships?
For one, the city is allowed to restrict the arrival of cruise ships if there’s no one on-hand to process those arriving on shore boats from ships.
The city also has room for one cruise ship at a time and operators must call well in advance in order to dock in the Monterey Bay.
As far as pollution is concerned, multiple federal/state agencies have a handle on this, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Monterey Bay Air Resources District.
One resident says despite all of these agencies having a role in keeping the Monterey Bay as great as it is, he’d like to see the city be able to do a little more.
“At least we’re trying,” says 25-year Monterey resident, Steve Carroll. “We’re trying to go in the right direction, but hopefully we can start here and find a loophole we can work out, but we’ve gotta protect this area it’s beautiful out here.”
The city is scheduled to have 20 cruise ships in the Monterey Bay during all of 2020.
