Has NCL signed environmental compliance plan with D.O.E.?

Stewart Krohn

The battle between the Belize Tourism Industry Association, Norwegian Cruise Line and the Government of Belize over the construction of a proposed port of call at Harvest Caye will imminently be waged in the Supreme Court.  B.T.I.A., having written the Department of the Environment concerning the approval of an environmental impact assessment for NCL to proceed with the development project, has indicated that it will be seeking a judicial review of the matter.  News Five understands that an application will be filed by the end of the week.  While NCL says that it is going ahead with the multimillion dollar project, President of the Placencia Chapter of B.T.I.A., Stewart Krohn says that there is uncertainty as to whether an environmental compliance plan has been signed by Norwegian and D.O.E.  Krohn maintains that the company is mainly out to squeeze every dollar from the cruise tourism industry.

Stewart Krohn, President, Placencia Chapter B.T.I.A.

“We don’t even know if Norwegian and the Department of the Environment have even signed the ECP [Environmental Compliance Plan] for the project.  What we do know from various sources in DOE is that there was quite a bit of back and forth going on about monitoring fees.  For example, the DOE has, as part of their ECP process, made an assessment of what NCL needs to pay for the monitoring of its project and I think DOE did its normal due diligence, came up with a figure and then NCL came back and said, no, no, no that figure is way, way too high.  It shouldn’t be so high.  And the last I heard they were trying to negotiate that figure down but it’s typical of the way NCL operates and the way all the cruise lines operate really.  They think that they bring something special to the table when, in fact, they bring nothing to the table at all.  Now you could imagine if this is the way they behave now, they try and squeeze every little concession out of the country, every little half a cent they want in their pocket instead of our pocket, if that’s the way they behave now how do you think they’re going to behave when they already have the twenty-five year concession.  They are out to pin this country against the wall and they will have us in a legal bind where we can’t touch them.”