Editorial
Cruise industry needs cooperation, plus law

The big-time cruise industry breezed through town about a week ago with an impressive tale to tell about the industry's desire to be a sound, environmentally sensitive neighbor.

This is no small matter since Hawai'i is about to see an exciting surge of business from the cruise industry.

Still, the process of getting to know each other has not been entirely smooth in other areas with major cruise business — think primarily of Florida and Alaska.

There were concerns about the social impact of huge numbers of cruise passengers descending on isolated ports of call. And there are natural questions about the economic impact of the cruise business on other parts of the visitor industry.

Perhaps most prominently, there are concerns about the environmental impact of these huge floating hotels on the air and marine environment. The industry will frankly acknowledge that some these concerns are of their own making: several firms have paid huge fines for illegal dumping of waste in the ocean.

But they say the black eye of those dumping incidents amounted to a wake-up call, and that — if anything — the industry is ahead of the regulators in maintaining high environmental standards. Ships are carrying new-generation sewage-treatment systems; they have developed sophisticated solid-waste disposal procedures.

It is in their plain best interest, the cruise operators say, to maintain as high a "green" standard as possible. It is not only a matter of being a welcome guest; it is a matter of protecting the environment in which they operate.

The policy question facing Hawai'i officials is how best to guarantee this happy picture. Alaska has gone the way of regulation, while Florida has taken a mutual-agreement approach (a memorandum of understanding) on best environmental practices.

The industry says the memorandum approach is far better, since it is flexible, allows for quick-fix improvements if problems arise and ensures a cooperative relationship between the cruise lines and regulators. Alaska's laws, they say, actually lag behind the standards cooperatively worked out in Florida.

This is a chance to do things right. Tourism reporter Michele Kayal recently pointed out that Hawai'i is proceeding toward a decision on this without much solid information on what would be best — not for the cruise industry, for Alaska or for Florida, but for Hawai'i.

We have many similarities with other cruise destinations, but we also have our own unique environmental, geographical and even cultural challenges. We have to know what we want and what we need before we decide how best to get it.

There is no reason we cannot create our own model, perhaps combining the best of what others before us have learned. We can create an "aloha" ethic of cooperation and voluntary compliance, but we can also put in place a statutory regime that ensures that voluntary programs serve first the needs of Hawai'i and its environment.