The Highway was widened from 26 to 54 feet along six miles of road at a cost of just under 5 million dollars. The new new section of road disturbed spawning and rearing habitat for coho and chum salmon, and dolly varden and cutthroat trout. Whether the new man-made fish habitat areas will be adequate remains to be seen. During the next phase, LCC hopes to work for a special designation that would provide funding for a scaled-down project that leaves natural spawning and rearing habitat intact. Tourism Cruising Southeast Alaska 632,000 cruise passengers came to Southeast Alaska this summer.
Corporate profits are at record highs.
In the mid 1980's the Cruise Industry fired American and European shipboard employees and hired workers from the third world. These workers are not subject to U.S. labor laws and there is growing evidence many are being exploited. From 1993 to 1998 there were 87 documented cases of illegal cruise ship dumping ranging from oily bilge water to toxic dry cleaning and photo developing chemicals. Because monitoring is rare we must assume numerous illegal acts remain undetected. Again, monitoring has been at best sporadic.