By Ernest Salomon
Each year, the Santa Barbara Council allows more and more cruise ships to anchor here and they are poisoning all of us, especially our children and poorer folks living in lower areas of our city.
PM 2.5 is the measurement of dangerous air particular matter in our air. At 1:49 PM today it is 11.8 which is over twice the limit given by the World Health Organization. On cruise ship days last week, it got as high as 65.0 and started dropping as soon as the second cruise ship left! PM 2 @ 65 is 13 times the WHO limit!
The council is more interested in the money the city receives from ship visits than it is about public health. These diesel particle matters stick to lungs and also wind up in the bloodstream. They have over 40 carcinogens in them and cause cancer. They are also partly responsible for the huge increase in asthma, especially children. Our council members are either misinformed or don’t care!
The only council member who voted against cruise ship visits was Councilwoman Snedden. She get’s it!
Check out our daily air quality, especially before, during and following two cruise ships anchoring here two days next week.
https://www.iqair.com/us/usa/california/santa-barbara
The difference is astounding and deadly!!
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So this is a city where someone who grew up here and got the tourism trigger wrong is worthy debate?
The deal is There Were No Cruise Ships in the1880around here, so no, It Is Not the same.
Who is this Newsome person the cons keep mentioning?
It was not tourists that stayed and screwed up this piece of coast.
I abhor anonymous posters.
Currently Caruso, Newsome etc. and pals.
Go home and leaves this place alone.
“I abhor anonymous posters.” – Indeed, Mr. Chico Berkeley. Are you of the Bay Area Berkeley’s? Wonderful family.
Anyway, yes… tourists DID stay in SB in the 1800s and begin developing the town into what it is today. Do you really think the Chumash, the only locals, did this all themselves?
I’m not a cruise ship fan at all either. On these types of decisions made by elected officials, some here on Edhat have said “love it or leave it”, whether it be SB or CA. And to that I’ve called bs again and again. Best bet is to vote accordingly.
There was a news story yesterday in Los Angeles about how the backlog of ships during the pandemic has greatly increased air pollution in the last couple of years as well, and we could certainly be getting some of that up our way too. Many of these ships go through our channel on their way out to sea as well.
Not surprised.
Santa Barbara sold out to the tourist industry back in the days after Reagan, and it has gotten worse year after year.
Santa Barbara has been a tourist city since the late 1800’s when rich mid-westerners took to wintering in CA. Big hotels were constructed to cater to this crowd. It totally sold out when the rebuilt after the earthquake and adopted the cute Spanish Revival theme to create some feeling of exoticism. So it was long before Reagan for sure. In any event, it is always about trying to get something from the suckers in this town.
CHICO – did Reagan keep the tourists out? How did he affect this at all?
1009@
Spoken by someone who obviously has no clue about Santa Barbara’s history of tourism.
This was the Western White House and SB got a lot of exposure at that time with a soap opera named for it and a fictitious life style, brings tourists from all over the world.
It was NOT the “American Riviera” as it is known now.
Reagan had nothing to do with it except it all happened at about the same time.
CHICO – it’s been referred to the American Riviera since the late 1800s. Point is, it has ALWAYS been a highly desired tourist town. This isn’t a recent phenomenon.
There may have been a reference but it was not called that when I was younger and tourism was NOT that big a deal in the 60’s. and there sure as heck weren’t any cruise ships so pull your head out.
Oh Please.
Cruise ships are toxic, also, in another way and that is the sneaky emptying of human waste into our water
Tourism is really good for Marshall’s though! (Yes, just observe what bags those tourist lug back to the ship)
…
https://www.toxicgoods.com/laundry-dryer-vents-toxicity-in-neighborhoods/
This is a danger to all and it goes on everyday filling our air and our homes.
> A 2013 study of fragranced laundry products showed that the use of dryer sheets increased D-limonene emissions from the dryer vent. D-limonene is a volatile organic compound (VOC) commonly found in fragrances and can be a precursor to formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen.
–> CARB’s consumer product regulation does regulate the VOC content in the dryer sheets and specifies a limit of 0.05g VOC per use. In a large complex where there are many children this is harming.
Ridiculous argument, do we ban container vessels next? Mr. Solomon should make better use of his time.