April 2015
| Business World
25
“Those are the kinds of initiatives we’re look-
ing to put in place,” Russell says. “We’re do-
ing that for both environmental reasons and
monetary reasons. With budget constraints,
we always have to look at ways of making the
services more efficient.”
The Department of Marine and Ports Ser-
vices is also responsible for the annual li-
censing of all private boats, commercial tour
boats and moorings in Bermuda. Additional
duties that fall under this umbrella include
small boat wreck removals, inspections of
foreshore encroachments, management of
small boat channels and processing applica-
tions for mooring piles and floating docks.
The Department also helps to resolve dis-
putes involving individuals and their boats
and moorings.
Currently, the Department has roughly
5,000 moorings they are in charge of in-
specting and licensing. They also have more
than 7,000 small boats on their register, 100
charter boats and about 200 rental vessels.
“We’re expecting that the charter boat fleet
will increase drastically because of the Amer-
