In light of the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s NYCruise Expansion plan, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer sent a letter to EDC President and CEO James Patchett demanding a comprehensive plan to reduce cruise ship emissions, including a strategy to fully equip the Manhattan Cruise Terminal with shore power.
Comptroller Stringer also requested more information about any efforts to better utilize existing plug-in capabilities at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, and how EDC’s plan to upgrade the terminal will help protect the environment and health of neighboring communities.
Last year, 214 cruise ships docked at the Manhattan and Brooklyn Cruise Terminals.
Shore power (or cold ironing) is the process of providing shoreside electrical power to a ship at berth, while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off.
“While docked at these piers, the overwhelming majority of the cruise liners continued to sit idle and run auxiliary engines typically powered by high-sulfur diesel fuel that has been linked to cancer, asthma, heart disease, and other serious health problems,” the official site of Comptroller Scott M. Stringer reads.
Estimates show that a single cruise ship idling for a day can generate as much diesel exhaust as 34,400 idling tractor-trailers, which is environmentally destructive to the neighborhoods bordering the cruise ship piers.
While cruise ships bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to New York City’s ports each year, these same ships are also responsible for spewing toxic, asthma-inducing exhaust fumes into neighborhoods that are already burdened with some of the city’s poorest air quality,
…said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer.
