The Port Authority receives almost $11 million to launch clean air strategy at the ports of NY and NJ

The Port Authority recently received two grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency totaling $9.8 million and another $1.8 million grant from the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority to implement the first pieces of a Comprehensive Clean Air Strategy for the Port of New York and New Jersey.

A $7 million federal grant will help launch a $28 million program to replace pre-1994 trucks serving the port. The EPA grant money and an additional $21 million incentive fund from The Port Authority of NY & NJ will enable truck owners serving the port to replace their pre-1994 trucks with newer cleaner burning, less polluting vehicles.

About 16 percent of the trucks that frequently call at the port were built before 1994, and they contribute 33 percent of the fine Particulate Matter, 14 percent of the NOx and 10 percent of the Greenhouse Gas emissions each year. The program provides funding to replace an estimated 636 of these older trucks with newer vehicles, resulting in a reduction of approximately 118 tons of NOx, 14 tons of PM2.5, and 1,675 tons of Greenhouse Gases per year.

As mentioned previously, the Port Authority has also been given grants to provide ship-to-shore power connection at the Red Hook Cruise Terminal.

This is obviously good news for our neighborhood. However, the emissions from other vehicles, both land-based and maritime, remain a source of concern, especially if overall traffic volumes increase.