PHOTO COURTESY OF VIKING CRUISES
The Discovery Center’s Greilickville pier in Traverse City, Michigan, will no longer host cruise ships, beginning in 2022, after opposition was expressed from locals, business owners, environmentalists and even the mayor, Jim Carruthers, according to The Ticker.
The Discovery Center’s board of directors voted last week, after it was initially announced that their pier would host Viking Cruises seven times in its first year, bringing in almost 400 passengers every docking. Greilickville pier is the only place for cruise ships to dock in the city, according to mLIVE.
“More cruise ships are coming to the Great Lakes sooner than we expected and many want to come to Traverse City,” Matt McDonough, Discovery Center CEO, told The Ticker. “The more conversations we had in the community about this issue, the more questions, concerns, and opinions we learned the community had.”
Critics include the chairman of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council, Greg Reisig.
“There’s not a lot of research on these Great Lakes ships,” he told The Ticker. “We need to do more studies and evaluate what are the environmental impacts.”
To read more about the decision, visit traverseticker.com/news/cruise-ships-not-welcome-discovery-center-votes-against-use-of-traverse-city-port/.
