Tourism

Leaders in cruise ship communities breathed a sigh of relief this week.

As it stands today, $15 million in cruise ship head taxes will be distributed to port-of-call communities. That money was threatened when a legislative conference committee removed the language that would allow for its distribution. But the budget approved by the legislature this week reverses that decision.

“If we didn’t get the money, we would have a budgetary crisis,” said Skagway Mayor Mark Schaefer.

The roughly $4 million the town expects to receive this year from cruise passenger taxes is used to pay for capital improvements and strains on services that come from the huge number of visitors.

“We have a town of 1,000 and today we probably have 14,000 or 15,000 visitors,” Schaefer said. “So the impacts are very large.”

Skagway is just one of more than a dozen coastal communities that receive $5 for each cruise visitor who docks in town. Cruise lines pay the tax to the state, which then distributes funds to communities. A legislative conference committee decision in May took out the language that would allow that disbursement to take place.

Eagle River Sen. Anna MacKinnon, who was on the committee, called the passenger tax system ‘broken.’ KHNS was unable to reach MacKinnon for comment.

Rep. Sam Kito’s district includes three cruise ship ports: Juneau, Haines and Skagway.

“My understanding is there were representatives from the cruise industry that were in Juneau last year expressing concerns over how some of the money was being spent by communities,” Kito said.

Communities are required to spend the passenger tax funds on port facilities or other services that benefit cruise visitors. A recent review from the State Division of the Legislative Audit found that towns mostly follow the rules when spending passenger taxes. But it did raise concerns about the future of the system.

“There is a potential that the more ports a vessel visits, the less solvent that fund becomes,” Kito said.

For now, he thinks the millions of dollars the state receives from cruise ship passenger taxes should be distributed to the communities they visit.

“I’m hoping that this puts that topic to rest and that there are a few small statutory things that need to be done but I think the program’s working very well for the state. It’s a program that I think we need to continue.”

The budget is now in the hands of Gov. Bill Walker.

On a busy summer day, thousands of people — mostly cruise ship passengers — visit Juneau’s Mendenhall Glacier. The U.S. Forest Service wants those tourists to take in the dramatic views, but also consider why the glacier is shrinking. Visitor center director John Neary is making it his personal mission.

That means trying to make the message stick — long after the tourists are gone. 

In a wing of the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center a small crowd of onlookers is watching a debate between a man and an employee about climate change. The tourist is wearing a floppy hat and red shirt. He’s leaning on a silver tipped cane as he listens, waiting for a chance to respond.

Kat Pratt, a ranger and interpreter, was delivering talking points on sea level rise when the man — who didn’t want to give his name — challenged her. He thought rising temperatures are cyclical, not caused by people. And the climate change scientists are paid off by environmental groups.

It goes on like this for about 15 minutes. Until they move onto something they both agree on: The glacier looks blue. Pratt seems unfazed.

“I get it about once a day usually and some of them get more confrontational. Maybe some not educated as that last gentleman, and there’s a lot to learn,” she said.

She said it encourages her to do more research, and she learns how to talk to visitors from different backgrounds. Many have never seen a glacier before and haven’t been confronted with the effects of climate change. Aside, from say, experiencing a hot summer.

“It became our central topic really just in the last few years,” said Neary.

He’s not afraid to admit he’s on a mission. He wants the more than 500,000 people who visit the glacier each year to know that it’s rapidly retreating due to climate change, and the 18 interpreters who work for him are prepared to talk about it. He said initially, not everyone was game.

“There was resistance, and I think people viewed it as a negative thing. And uh, you know people on vacation. They don’t want to hear about negative things,” Neary said. “They want to think about the positive (things) — watch the whales, see the eagles. That sort of thing. I get that. That’s understandable.”

But he said it’s all connected. Compounds from glacial silt wash down and feed the plankton that whales and other species depend on. Salmon spawn in nearby waters.

In the past 30 years, Neary’s noticed an extreme visible difference in the glacier. He started at the Forest Service around that time. And at first, for him, Mendenhall wasn’t a big deal.

“It didn’t seem very special to me to be honest. It was just a glacier,” he said. “You appreciate things as they become diminished in your life, you look at them differently when they are disappearing.”

Now, Neary uses that when talking to visitors. He tells them about the time he was out hiking on a steep trail beside the glacier and his dog fell 90 feet onto the ice. Don’t worry, the dog survived.

“But the story comes back to me when I go back out there and realize that spot which I climbed is now more than a half mile away,” Neary said. “And there’s no glacier, there’s dense alder thicket there. So there’s big changes.”

To address those changes, Neary wants to make changes to the visitor center, too. He wants the building to be LEED certified in the next few years. That means it will be energy efficient and produce less greenhouse gas.

This approach has captured the attention of other countries. Eleven delegates from Norway are visiting in June. Neary said they’re interested in seeing what the visitor center is doing and also sharing ideas. Chilean park officials are planning a trip in the fall. Neary wonders if parks around the world are trying to figure out what their role should be when it comes to climate change.

“I think we are one in a million in the setting that we have. But I’d like to think that the conversation is happening everywhere,” Neary said.

Inside the visitor center, an interpreter lures a crowd over to touch a slick hunk of glacial ice. People stop to take selfies with it and snap pictures.

“Would you like to see some photos of the glacier in the past?” the interpreter asks.

The photos start in the 1950s and show the progression of how much the glacier has changed.

“You can’t replace it right?” a man asks. The interpreter tells him, “No, we can’t.” 

Anna Laing — one of the people who watched the presentation — traveled all the way from Glasgow, Scotland, to be here.

She said being on vacation, she had no idea she’d learn so much about climate change.

“It’s just a statement that’s just out there, normally,” Laing said. “And it doesn’t really mean much to you until you really see the physical evidence of it. Especially, since we’re able to touch the glacier there and know what we’re losing.”

Some scientists say the Mendenhall Glacier won’t be visible from the visitor center by the end of this century. John Neary hopes tourists have that in mind when they return back home.

The World Health Organization is trying to ease concerns about spreading Zika as a result of this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janiero.

“Based on current assessment, cancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus,” a statement released Saturday reads.

This comes a day after more than 150 scientists released an open letter to the head of WHO calling for the games to be moved or postponed, citing new research. “We make this call despite the widespread fatalism that the Rio 2016 Games are inevitable or ‘too big to fail,'” the letter says. Here’s more:

“An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire the strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic. Should that happen to poor, as-yet unaffected places (e.g., most of South Asia and Africa) the suffering can be great. It is unethical to run the risk, just for Games that could proceed anyway, if postponed and/or moved.”

It called on WHO to conduct a new assessment of its recommendations regarding Zika and the games, citing concerns about the medical consequences of the strain of the virus found in Brazil.

The Olympics are set to start in just 69 days and as The Guardian noted, the Olympic torch is already touring Brazil on its way to the opening ceremonies.

“The fire is already burning, but that is not a rationale not to do anything about the Olympics,” said Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa professor and one of the letter’s four co-authors, told The Guardian. “It is not the time now to throw more gasoline on to the fire.”

Attaran recently published a commentary for the Harvard Public Health Review and spoke with All Things Considered about his controversial position. “[T]he odds are extremely high that somebody will take the disease elsewhere and seed a new outbreak,” he said.

As the WHO states, “based on the current assessment of Zika virus circulating in almost 60 countries globally and 39 countries in the Americas, there is no public health justification for postponing or cancelling the games.” It advises people coming for the games to follow public health advice, like guarding against mosquito bites and practicing safe sex.

The new letter from the scientists “will cause a fresh headache for Brazilian government officials and Olympic organisers, who have repeatedly insisted the Games can go ahead safely as long as athletes and visitors smother themselves in insect repellent to minimise the risks from the mosquito-borne disease,” as The Guardian reports.

Brazil’s president is facing impeachment proceedings and the country is in the middle of an economic recession.

According to Reuters, the International Olympic Committee says it was not consulted on the WHO’s response. The wire service adds that the IOC “has repeatedly said the virus would not pose a threat to the Games.”

Skagway leaders are holding off on approving a budget for next fiscal year because of uncertainty over the state budget — in particular, a measure that would withhold cruise ship head taxes from port communities. If that proposal were to go through during the special session, Skagway would be left without a significant piece of its revenue pie.

If the state were to forgo distribution of passenger taxes, Skagway would lose out on about $4 million.

“That’s a hell of a blow,” said Assemblyman Tim Cochran at a meeting last week.

Normally, passenger taxes the state collects per cruise visitor are funneled to the port communities the ships visit. But a legislative conference committee voted earlier this month to remove key language in the operating budget that allows that distribution to happen. Borough manager Scott Hahn said the assembly shouldn’t just assume things will work out.

“From what I have heard through the grapevine so to speak, they thought it was a lot of bravado,” Hahn said. “And I guess politics is a lot of bravado, a lot of egos and emotions. Maybe something will come around. But at this point in time, I think you have to behave as if you’re not getting the CPV money for next year.”

The assembly agreed. They approved a second reading of the budget, but will delay adoption until the state financial picture is clearer.

Skagway lobbyist John Walsh was on the phone from Juneau. He said he also heard from other cruise ship port community leaders that they think the issue will be resolved.

“I think most people think it’s gonna get worked out, and I trust it will and that’s fine,” Walsh said. “But what if it doesn’t? You are instantly harmed and that’s arguably unnecessary.”

He recommended the assembly send a letter to Gov. Bill Walker urging him to reinstate the passenger tax distribution language, which the assembly did.

The assembly discussed commissioning an updated study of how cruise passenger taxes are spent in the community. The last study was in 2008 and helped justify the municipality using the funds for water, sewer and other utility expenses. Borough staff will look into the cost of an updated study and bring back details at a later meeting.

Aside the passenger tax discussion, the assembly put off action on several items.

One has to do with what steps to take next toward the goal of remediating port contamination and building a new floating dock. The assembly held a work session with the port commission recently. Cochran described the general consensus from that meeting:

“We still need access, so we need to re-engage with White Pass. They’re the main lease holder.”

They decided to schedule another work session to, as Assemblyman Steve Burnham Jr. put it, resolve their “indecisiveness” on the port. In the meantime, the idea of hiring a maritime planner was put on the back burner.

The assembly delayed action on three agreements that would allow companies that sub-lease municipality land from White Pass and Yukon Railroad to use space outside their current contracts.

There were three items set for discussion in executive session with borough attorney Bob Blasco — first, a request from Alaska Mountain Guides to recuperate legal fees. AMG filed an appeal over the Skagway planning commission’s denial of a raptor tour permit in Liarsville. A judge recently found in AMG’s favor and remanded the decision back to the planning commission.

The attorney was also scheduled to give advice about the municipality’s potential purchase of Long Bay property owned by the Matthews family.

And finally, Blasco was to advise on implications of renewing subleases with Alaska Marine Lines and Temsco. Those companies use land included in the municipality’s long-standing lease with White Pass, which is a central issue in discussions about the Skagway port’s future.

The assembly did not take action on any of the three matters. When they came out of the executive session after two hours, there was no public discussion of the AMG request, Long Bay property or port subleases.

The next assembly meeting is scheduled for June 2.

More than a hundred people gathered Saturday at the Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial Saturday for the Blessing of the Fleet and to pay tribute to the people whose names are engraved on the memorial.

Eight names were added to the memorial — Charlie Polk, Ronald John Jr., William Newman, Gordon Hallum, Walter Baldwin, Joe Bennett Jr., Patrick Venner and Greg Fisk, the former mayor of Juneau who died last fall shortly after taking office. There are now 211 names on the memorial.

The memorial recently was at the center of a battle between the board of the memorial and the City and Borough of Juneau. Board President Carl Brodersen announced at the ceremony that they were looking for a new home for the memorial.

In an interview, Brodersen said the board is working to mend its relationship with the city and move forward. He said the board’s decision was not an easy one, especially considering that the memorial serves as a kind of gravesite for 47 people whose bodies were lost at sea over the years.

“There is essentially an enormous concrete wall in front of us and so it feels like we’re on the side of a little river as opposed to the ocean,” Brodersen said. “It’s simply not ideal. I recognize that it’s not ideal as opposed to untenable. We’ve made it work today and that’s important, but in terms of the longterm health of the memorial itself I think the best thing is to try to move it.”

Brodersen said the board currently doesn’t have funding or set plans, but they are talking with people working on the Juneau Ocean Center to see if the memorial could be worked into the center’s proposed design.

(Click any picture for a slideshow view)

 

“It will take years and honestly I don’t know if it will ever even happen but I would like to see it happen in my lifetime or maybe even much sooner than that. But it is a grave and it’s an extremely emotional and contentious issue, so we just have to proceed carefully and gently,” Brodersen said.

Brodersen said anyone interested in helping the board fundraise or come up with plans for a new site should get in touch with him.

You can listen to an audio postcard of the ceremony here:

 

The Crown Princess cruise ship arrived unexpectedly in Juneau on Sunday. The ship was scheduled to arrive Tuesday. Kirby Day is manager of port operations for the Holland America Group, which includes Princess Cruises. Day said operations in Vancouver — where the ship’s journey began — were slower than usual.

“There were three ships in Vancouver on Friday and with about 8,500 people the embarkation process just went very slow for all three ships,” Day said. “All three ships sailed late, including the Crown Princess.”

The ship was scheduled to be in Glacier Bay yesterday but because of the late start, it would have arrived there at 9 p.m. — too late for passengers to fully see the area.

Day said the ship will visit Glacier Bay Monday before heading to Skagway and Ketchikan.