Park Service maintains cruise ship status quo at Glacier Bay

ANCHORAGE - The National Park Service has decided to maintain the status quo on how many cruise ships will be allowed to enter the whale-filled waters of Glacier Bay National Park.

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The decision means that 139 ships will be allowed into Glacier Bay during the summer season, officials said, or one or two ships a day from May to September.

Before making any decision to up the number to a potential 184, the agency will conduct a rigorous scientific review on how cruise ships affect the park's endangered humpback whales and other marine species, Park Service officials said.

Environmentalists say cruise ships could threaten humpback whales because not much is known about how the marine mammals interact with the ships' engine noise, speed and overall presence in the confined, iceberg-filled waters of Glacier Bay.

A pregnant humpback received a fatal blow from a cruise ship in Glacier Bay in 2001, Park Service officials determined. A necropsy revealed massive head injuries, including the loss of an eye.

The Park Service spelled out its recent decision in a court-ordered final environmental impact statement. The agency conducted the environmental study after the National Parks Conservation Association sued in 1996 and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the advocacy group.

At the time, the Park Service increased ship visits from 107 to 139 without doing an environmental impact study, a move the National Parks Conservation Association said, and the court agreed, violated federal laws.

In 2001, Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, got Congress to mandate that the Park Service allow 139 ships per season until it completed the EIS.

John Shively, vice president of government and community relations at cruise line Holland America, said he doesn't think the cruise ships are impacting wildlife in Glacier Bay.

"There seems to be continued use of the bay by humpback whales. I'm not going to predict the scientific study, but I think we're confident that since cruise ships have been in Glacier Bay for a good number of years, the science will show there's not an impact," he said.

Shively said it's possible the Park Service and the cruise ship industry will implement further restrictions as a result of the study.

Jim Stratton, head of the National Parks Conservation Association's Anchorage office, called the recent decision a mixed bag.

"The important thing is the application of science to any increase in cruise ship numbers. But they missed some other opportunities," Stratton said.

For instance, the organization asked the Park Service to close off the east arm of Glacier Bay to cruise ships, but the agency declined. Stratton's group and others also unsuccessfully pressed for vessel limits in other areas of the national park, such as Dundas Bay, where a small cruise ship, operated by Goldbelt Inc., the for-profit Native corporation in Juneau, grounded in 2001, causing a 200-gallon fuel spill.

Park Service officials said there's not enough evidence to warrant protecting additional parts of the bay, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

A 13-knot speed limit for vessels 262 feet in length or longer will be applied as needed. A draft version of the environmental study called for such a year-round speed limit, but the Park Service decided to impose it only when whales are abundant and dispersed throughout the bay.

That didn't sit well with Aurah Landau, an organizer with the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.

"A clear speed limit needs to be put into place, not on an as-needed basis," Landau said. "Are we going to have another dead whale (struck by) the bow of a cruise ship in order to have mandatory speed limits?"

The Park Service plans to put together a science advisory panel to make further recommendations on cruise-ship management in Glacier Bay.

• Empire reporter Masha Herbst contributed to this article. She can be reached at Masha.herbst@juneauempire.com.