How Cruise Ships Bring 1,200 Tons of Toxic Fumes To Brooklyn a Year

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to introduce [a $21 million plug-in station] in Red Hook several years ago in an effort to eliminate 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide, 25 tons of nitrous oxide and tons of hazardous particulate matter spewed out each year by cruise ships idling off Brooklyn's coast. [A recent survey found that asthma rates in Red Hook were almost twice as high as the citywide average. Also, Vanadium, a toxic metal in marine fuel that can cause lung damage, was found near cruise terminals in Brooklyn and Manhattan.] When not using shore power, a single cruise ship docked for one day can emit as much diesel exhaust as 34,400 idling tractor-trailers, according to an independent analysis verified by the Environmental Protection Agency. When a ship is plugged in, the agency said, its exhaust is nearly eliminated. But the system has hardly been used after going into operation in 2016. And New York City is expected to announce design plans next year that would expand and modernize terminals in Brooklyn and Manhattan to accommodate the world's largest cruise ships, and more of them. Yet there is no plan to further expand the shore power system.

Neighborhood residents, led by Mr. Armstrong, are sounding the alarm. They want the pollution controls that were promised by the Bloomberg administration. They fault the city and state for failing to force the matter, and the cruise line companies for failing to use the system. Carnival Cruise, which owns the three big ships that dock regularly in Brooklyn, including the Queen Mary 2, agrees that the issue is important. [...] Figuring out why Brooklyn's shore-power system hasn't eliminated cruise ship pollution has become a guessing game involving various government agencies, activists and the cruise lines themselves. One thing is certain: Cruise ships in New York don't have to plug in if they don't want to. The reason why many ships don't plug in is because they aren't required to. "California, unlike New York, has made plugging in mandatory," the report says. "Under a strict 2007 diesel-emissions law, the state requires that 70 percent of visiting ships -- including container and refrigerated cargo vessels -- connect to shore power."

"In Brooklyn, while other cruise ships are welcome to use the plug-in system, the Queen Mary is the only one that can easily access shore power because the electrical sockets on other ships do not line up with the shore-power crane, according to a development corporation spokesman."

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