What are they so afraid of?

Every time water quality testing in the Key West Harbor pops up on the City Commission agenda we’re guaranteed one thing: Local developer and Pier B’s legal consultant, Bart Smith, is going to pooh-pooh any discussion of whether cruise ships negatively affect water quality in the harbor. And each time I roll my eyes and ask: “What are they so afraid of?”

That’s akin to refusing to do the tests when the doc tells you that, based on the symptoms, you might have a problem — or you might not. Depends on the test results. All clear; go forth for a happy life. Yikes, it’s bad; how do I fix it? Don’t you want to know?

Based on the symptoms, one side believes turbidity caused by cruise ships does irreparable damage to the harbor’s fragile ecosystems and wants extensive, consistent testing. It also wants most cruise ships out of the harbor. The other side believes that’s a crock and digs in its heels against additional testing. It also wants unfettered cruise ship access to the harbor and specifically Pier B.

Seems simple to me. Run the tests; find out for sure; fix it if need be.

In general, Key West understands water quality. The Atlantic, the Gulf, the exceptional natural harbor, they’re our livelihood and the foundation for the exquisite Keys ecosystem. We believe protecting our fragile environment, while integrating responsible growth and development policies, sustains our island, its people, its waters and its wildlife — and that ensures a thriving, balanced future. 

Few argue about the need — overall — to monitor the water. But courses collided in the harbor when, in 2022 during Covid, city voters overwhelmingly approved three referendums that limited the number of big cruise ships in the harbor (later mostly overridden by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Pier B acolytes) and established rules for water quality testing.

We’ve been arguing over harbor testing since.

Water testing: Water quality is more than how it looks

We start with Section 80 Code of Ordinances. That’s the Cruise Ship Regulations ordinance adopted unanimously by the commission in April 2022, after the referendums. In the two years in between overwhelming community support for banning certain ships and the adoption of Section 80, the state overruled the city’s ban.

But Section 80 also put in place significant environmental controls on ships and created, in Section 80-3, two funds, one for coral restoration in the harbor and a second for water quality testing program. The College of the Florida Keys obtained federal grants to do the monitoring and with city support and some financing, CFK started testing.

We have one report, done during 2024 when CFK monitored harbor turbidity in almost real time. That report said CFK had found 32 instances when cruise ship-related turbidity exceeded that created by hurricanes. It was an explosive conclusion that raised the hackles of Pier B and commissioners — both pro and con testing — and prompted Mote Marine, which also does water quality testing and has ties to Pier B, to question the methodology. That report isn’t enough to hang major growth and development policies on.

Thanks to the sheer doggedness of Safer Cleaner Ships and commissioners Monica Haskell and Sam Kaufman, on May 7 the commission approved going forward with “Task Zero,” which requires Stantec, the current holder of the city’s testing contract, to monitor the harbor. A commission majority had previously balked at a $60,000-plus increase in the contract, so Stantec agreed to do it within budget. The catch? Less monitoring for other contracted tasks and with only the minimum level of technology. It meets the legal requirements to monitor the harbor, though hardly the spirit of the thing.

Better than nothing? I guess. But there’s so much room for error in stripped-down monitoring that both sides will be justified in quibbling over the results.

Common sense says that consistent churned-up sand and silt deposited across living things — plants, corals and other sea creatures — can’t possibly be a good thing. Common sense also says Key West will have to tolerate, at least for the foreseeable future, cruise ships in our harbor. A clean, vibrant harbor can coexist with the politically powerful cruise ship lobby and, like it or not, most of us accept that it’s a delicate, always-evolving alliance.

But that alliance, that balance, will never be achieved if water quality monitoring isn’t done well and if its results fuel skepticism on both sides. So I ask again: What are they so afraid of? (And, yeah, like you, I know how I’d answer that. Unscientifically, of course.)