TESTIMONY
Testimony: Adam Armstrong Advocates for Immediate Shore Power Implementation
2:17:27
·
3 min
Adam Armstrong delivers a compelling testimony on the urgent need for immediate implementation of shore power at the Brooklyn cruise terminal. Detailing a personal timeline of the lengthy struggle against pollution from cruise ships in Red Hook, Armstrong highlights the failures and delays of the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) in fulfilling shore power promises. He emphasizes the negative health and environmental impacts of the prolonged inaction and calls for New York City to mandate shore power usage for visiting ships, matching global port city standards.
Speaker 14
2:17:27
Hi.
2:17:27
My name's Adam Armstrong.
2:17:30
Just I wanted to just quickly divert from my prepared pieces just to say, scrubbers, another solution.
2:17:38
If those ships were using scrubbers in Red Hawk, they wouldn't have black smoke.
2:17:42
Ship's using scrubbers admit white smoke.
2:17:45
I don't know why EDC is being assuring everyone that the ships are using scrubbers, and that's just okay.
2:17:51
So I don't know what's going on there.
2:17:52
The other point is sure power is not hard.
2:17:55
Other ports are doing it all around the world and around this country.
2:17:59
Miami is instigating that shore power system from announcement till implementation in a couple of years.
2:18:06
They're doing it in years not decades.
2:18:09
My son, born in Red Hawk in 2003, was three years old when we first started to see the polluting funnels of cruise ships, towering over the backyard of our family home on Pioneer Street.
2:18:19
That's when I began the campaign to bring shore power to the Brooklyn cruise terminal.
2:18:24
He was 6 when the NYC EDC import authority made their promise.
2:18:28
To build 0 emission short power infrastructure at the terminal.
2:18:32
He was 9 when Super Storm Stanley flooded our house, filling our first floor to the ceiling with oily storm water and still the building of the shore power system that promised to remove tons of CO2.
2:18:43
And other greenhouse gases yearly from how air had not yet begun.
2:18:47
He was thirteen when EDC announced that the newly built and tested shore power system was fully operational.
2:18:54
It was not.
2:18:55
In the press release, the EDC submitted in 2016, They said that the health benefits associated with improved air quality were resulting in $99,000,000.
2:19:07
$99,000,000 over 15 years.
2:19:10
That is an EDC statement.
2:19:11
They don't seem to remember it today.
2:19:14
We celebrated our son's 14th, 15th, and 16th birthdays watching the cruise ships continue to belt check carcinogenic asthma and climate change inducing diesel emissions over our neighborhood with EDC making excuses why the ship weren't plugging in.
2:19:28
He was nearly 17 when the New York Times story exposing the EDC's excuses and ineptitude in building a functional shore power system was published.
2:19:39
He was nearly 18 when we left Red Hawk due to our family's concerns about our continued exposure to truck congestion, and the fear of other disasters due to climate change.
2:19:51
And our frustration with the continued inaction on in the shore power system.
2:19:56
I had spent 15 years fighting for.
2:19:59
My son turns 21 next month.
2:20:02
The ShorePower system is still not working to its full capacity and EDC is dragging its feet and fixing it.
2:20:07
Now in a backroom deal with EDC, the cruise companies and the cruise companies, they are giving a decade more for the cruise ships to plug in.
2:20:16
10 more years to pump emissions into our air and water.
2:20:18
That have been proven to be dangerous to human health end of the climate, 10 more years of avoidable pollution that's killing our children and our planet.
2:20:25
This sad and embarrassing saga has to end.
2:20:28
NYC has to join the other world plus port cities and urgently mandate the use of shore power for all ships visiting our city.
2:20:35
Thank you.