Comptroller Stringer Calls on New York City Economic Development Corporation to Address Cruise Ship Pollution at Manhattan and Brooklyn Terminals
Demands a strategy to expand shore plug-in technology and reduce cruise ship emissions at Manhattan and Brooklyn Terminals
In 2019, 214 cruise ships docked at Manhattan and Brooklyn Cruise Terminals, the majority of them idling and running auxiliary engines that are harmful to both the environment and New Yorkers’ health
(New York, NY) – In light of the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) 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 plug-in technology. 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. 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. Estimates have shown that a single cruise ship idling for a day can generate as much diesel exhaust as 34,400 idling tractor-trailers. This excessive and easily reducible pollution is environmentally destructive to the neighborhoods bordering the cruise ship piers that already have poorer air quality compared to both their borough and the citywide average.
“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. “I stand with New Yorkers who live in Hell’s Kitchen and Red Hook who have had to suffer the impact of this suffocating, poisonous pollution for too long. The infrastructure we build today directly affects our climate goals for the future, and we need a plan to mitigate the excessive and easily reducible cruise ship pollution at both the Manhattan and Brooklyn terminals. For the sake of our city, our planet, and our neighborhoods, this has to change.”
To read Comptroller Stringer’s letter to NYCEDC President and CEO James Patchett, click here.
###