The Yorktown waterfront is the very home of American history, even more so than Williamsburg.  The river is full of submerged historical artifacts, and the Colonial Parkway - a National Park - is a tribute to 1930s work projects and the foundations of historic preservation.  Cruise ships undermine everything Yorktown stands for.    Let them come if they must, but further downriver.  

The underhanded methods the cruise company and the York County EDA have chosen to utilize in getting these cruise ships through with little public knowledge and even less knowledge of the environmental effects of the project demonstrate that it needs denial.  If this were truly beneficial, and not just lip service, there would be no need for the deceit.  The financial benefits to the York County residents are not substantiated while the damage to our way of life - the river and its economic and environmental value, the history, and on to the traffic on a highly congested main thoroughfare (with our schools already on that same road) - has been severely understated.  

Cruise ships should remain in Norfolk.  Smaller boats can be run to Yorktown for those interested in the Historic Triangle.  Our river, our battlefields, our historic cemeteries and wetlands need to be safeguarded.