Portland will soon be visited by the largest cruise ship it鈥檚 ever hosted. Do you know what kind of impacts these behemoths with their thousands of passengers have on our environment? We didn鈥檛 either, so we asked:
On Aug. 28, the biggest cruise ship ever to visit Portland is due to dock at the Ocean Gateway at 8 a.m. The Anthem of the Seas, which sets sail on its first American voyage on Aug. 25, is 1,140 feet long and is slated to carry 4,974 passengers and a crew of 1,480.
That鈥檚 roughly the population of Belfast contained in a boat nearly four football fields long and equipped with a viewing pod that rises so high off the deck that passengers will be able to look down on the Portland Observatory on Munjoy Hill. (The city had to check with the Federal Aviation Authority to make sure this didn鈥檛 interfere with flight plans at the nearby Portland International Jetport.) The ship will be in town only about nine hours, but that ought to be enough time for a lot of double takes.
And questions.
In a town so focused on sustainability that it has competing composting companies and a public housing project with a rooftop garden, some residents are likely to wonder just what kind of environmental impacts wash ashore with a giant ship like the Anthem of the Seas.
Worldwide, cruising is on the rise, with 24.2 million people expected to go on cruises in the course of 2016, up 4.3 percent from 2015. In Maine, Portland has become an increasingly popular destination for cruise lines 鈥� Bob Leeman, the marketing manager of Cruise Portland, said the city is scheduled to receive 104,000 visitors from cruise ships this year, up about 10 percent from the previous year.
It鈥檚 only natural then to ask what impact these ships have on our marine life, the waters of Casco Bay, the local food economy and environment and whether the economic benefits of selling T-shirts and lobster rolls to some very short-term tourists balances out the carbon footprint of ships so big they make the Time and Temperature building look dainty.
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