Mass. Hysteria

Building a Billion Dollar "Green Cape Cod" Tourism

By Riley Neugebauer

I have heard about the new Massachusetts advertising campaign to bring more tourists in from the surrounding states using images of our beautiful landscapes and Cape Cod seashores, but do not understand how millions can be spent advertising exactly the things that the state refuses to allocate money to. 

I recently was part of a Lobby Day at the State House with EnviroCitizen and the Environmental League of Massachusetts, where we posed questions and concerns to state policymakers about the environmental budget in the state.  

Primary concerns include a lack of funds allocated to parks and waterways in order to maintain these places, and a lack of funding to agencies like the DEP, which has lost ¼ of its employees in the last few years. 

Tourism demands clean air and clear water

These are concerns of many citizens in the state, including the thousands of students located here, some of whom I work with.  The lack of funding affects our state’s ability to effectively measure our water quality, our air quality, and affects our ability to enjoy the natural areas in the state when there is no money to hire anyone to take care of them.  Asthma is one significant problem in Massachusetts and nationally that can be addressed by better air quality monitoring and policies to address pollution, but which won’t be addressed when there is less and less money going to departments like the DEP.

There is no denying how important tourism is to Cape Cod, an industry that employs 17% of workers on the Cape directly, and a much higher percentage indirectly, with 11,700 workers on payroll in travel related jobs, earning an aggregate of $258 million. 

Eating and drinking places, miscellaneous retail, food stores, and hotels are the first, third, fourth, and fifth ranked industries by employment in Cape Cod, respectively. 

With all of this money circulating related to tourism, it must mean that Massachusetts is very concerned with preserving the area, keeping the air and water clean, and maintaining the various parks and waterways found on Cape Cod. 

A "Green Cape Cod" would help tourism

But the environmental spending in the state does not seem to reflect that.  All of the studies I have seen also reflect that allowing something like the Cape Wind Project to be built offshore would result in increased tourism as well, making me wonder why it is that the state does not seem to support wholeheartedly the things that seem to make the most sense to me when looking at the facts. 

Cape Cod garners 1/5 of all Mass. tourism dollars - it's nearly a billion dollar business in Barnstable County

Of all domestic travel to Massachusetts, Cape Cod holds 19% of the market share of the revenue in this area.  It really is amazing how many people go to Cape Cod to visit and to enjoy the beautiful scenery, and while enjoying this scenery, they also support the Cape by spending $916 million dollars a year, making travel and tourism the most important industry on Cape Cod. 

The whole problem seems to be a chicken or the egg conundrum.  On one hand, some would argue that by spending more to increase tourism, more people will come here and then there will be more money to spend on the environmental budget.  On the other hand, some would argue that by spending more to maintain parks and not spending the money on advertising, the places themselves would remain more beautiful, causing more people to want to visit.  Additionally, while increasing advertising may increase tourism and therefore revenues to the state, I fear that this increased revenue will not be used in the end to support the environmental budget.  Why risk the tourism that we do have, which has remained quite strong, by letting our public lands deteriorate and letting air and water quality monitoring fall by the wayside?

Let's get it together

As a young person recently out of college, I know from experience with my own social circles, and through working with EnviroCitizen, which concentrates on youth, that young people today are very interested in seeing the environment held as a priority by decisionmakers. 

How else do you explain the recent gathering of over 27,000 signatures across the U.S. in favor of independence from dirty energy, including over 3,000 signatures from Massachusetts alone?  Nearly 1,000 students also supported the Cape Wind Project by writing to the Army Corps of Engineers in recent months.  There is an upcoming surge of politically active youth that really want those things that should be considered a right, clean air and clean water. 

This means justice to the communities that receive the brunt of environmental impact, those that live next to or downwind from power plants and hazardous waste sites, and which are also most often people of color communities.  I feel like this issue of spending is just another example of how environmental concerns are not taken seriously or reflected in policy decisions in the state, and I plan to continue working on getting the word out and working with others to change the policies detrimental to the environment and public health.

Riley Neugebauer is an Organizing Fellow at EnviroCitizen in Roxbury, Massachusetts where she organizes young people to run clean energy campaigns on their campuses, as well as advocating for clean energy and public health through lobbying, education, and media. Riley attended Allegheny College in Western Pennsylvania where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. While in school, Riley worked for two years as an Americorps Bonner Leader with French Creek Project, doing education and advocacy for the local watershed. She also interned with Ecos Consulting in Colorado, working to gather research and data on energy efficiency and consumer electronics. She maintains an interest in renewables, green building, and environmental justice and plans to continue working in this field and also plans to obtain a related master’s degree in the near future.  (617) 427-3598 or email rileyn@envirocitizen.org.