Key West Residents to Decide on Widening Shipping Channel to Accommodate Larger Cruise Liners
Key West Residents to Decide on Widening Shipping Channel to Accommodate Larger Cruise Liners
In November, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released what’s called a reconnaissance study that deemed the widening economically viable and set the price tag at $35 million.
City Manager Jim Scholl said the next step is to get the pulse of the residents and decide whether to move forward on a feasibility study to determine the necessary permitting process and analyze potential environmental and economic impacts.
On Wednesday, technical experts from the Army Corps, staff from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Key West City Commission will sit down at a workshop to hear details of the project, solicit resident input and discuss their options. That’s scheduled to start at 6 p.m. in Old City Hall on Greene Street.
“It’s just a presentation and discussion,” Scholl said. “The commission will hear about all the aspects of the channel-widening project and what the true impact of that proposal will be for Key West being a port of call for the cruise-ship industry. And really whether or not the commission will want to support the next step.”
Scholl said a feasibility study would cost about $5.5 million, half of which has to come through a four-year federal appropriation and the other half, $2.75 million, from non-federal dollars.
“That could be state dollars, cruise-industry dollars, the city government, whatever. We would work with the state of Florida and the Florida Ports Council, the cruise-ship industry and any of the other potential beneficiaries to say, ‘Hey, we need to have funding appropriated that’ll support this study.’”
He said the city schedules about 350 cruise-ship visits per year, totaling about 800,000 annual passengers. All of those passengers pay a disembarkation fee, which the city gets.
Illustrating the political struggle between supporting the essential tourism industry while maintaining quality of life for residents, the Key West Chamber of Commerce has come out in favor of widening the channel while environmental group Last Stand is opposed.
The area of the channel in question is called Cut B. Right now is 300 feet wide; the proposal would make it 450 feet. Another factor in play is the ongoing widening of the Panama Canal, scheduled for completion in 2014.
The cruise-industry trend is toward larger ships holding more passengers; take, for instance, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, launched last year. It’s 1,187 feet long and carries more than 5,000 passengers and crew. It can’t now safely navigate into Key West, but could with the dredging.
