Under an instructor’s eye, a student kayaker does a roll behind One Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dependable is berthed at Pier 7.

New York Times: The mighty Queen Mary 2 will no longer be belching diesel fumes over Red Hook when it docks at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal next year. Instead, the cruise ship will shut its engines and plug into a giant electrical outlet built especially for the port.
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Plugging in to an alternative hydroelectric source at the Red Hook port would eliminate nearly 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide, 95 tons of nitrous oxide and 6.5 tons of diesel particulate matter annually.

State Senator Daniel Squadron released the following statement:

With this agreement to bring shore power to the cruise terminal, Brooklyn can finally breathe a little easier. The noxious diesel fumes that cruise ships in port have been spewing are bad for Brooklynites and bad for the environment. I have worked with Council Member Brad Lander, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, our colleagues in government and the entire community to advocate for an expedited agreement to implement shore power. I commend Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, the Port Authority, the New York Power Authority, the Economic Development Corporation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Carnival Cruise Lines for working together to find this important solution.

Update: Mayor Bloomberg’s press release, which came out after this was first posted, includes more information on timing:

The project includes over $15 million in onshore infrastructure, funded with about $12 million from the Port Authority and a nearly $3 million grant from the US EPA. Carnival Cruise Lines will spend up to $4 million to retrofit the two Carnival Cruise Lines ships that dock at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Under an agreement reached by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the City and New York Power Authority (NYPA) will provide NYPA electricity to Carnival at a fixed and discounted rate for a period of five years, which is valued at roughly $2 million per year. Approximately 40 ship calls per year will use shore power. Construction of the on-shore infrastructure will begin mid-2011 and is expected to be complete in 2012. Additionally, beginning in 2012, Carnival Cruise Lines will be required to use progressively lower-sulfur fuel for its ships, further reducing the relative cost of shore power.

So, given the time needed to install shore and ship-based infrastructure, it appears that the changeover to shore power is at least a year off. However, the reduction in the sulfur content of fuel used by the shipboard auxiliary generators in the interim should be of some benefit.

Photo of Queen Mary 2 docked at Red Hook by C. Scales.

The Brooklyn Paper: The controversial designation sets into motion a half-billion-dollar, decade-long federally overseen clean-up of the polluted waterway, which cuts a sclerotic artery through the gentrifying heart of Brownstone Brooklyn. But it also raises questions about whether developers, who currently yearn to build residential housing in the canal zone, will ever exhibit quite the same ardor now that the area has been deemed one of the most polluted places in the country.

“This site has a very long legacy of toxic pollution that plagues this urban waterway,” said Judith Enck, the EPA’s regional director. “And because of that, the EPA is saying it is adding the Gowanus Canal to the federal Superfund list. We believe it will get us the most efficient and comprehensive cleanup of this waterway.”

Enck started her statement by declaring that taxpayers should rest easy that the feds went with a Superfund designation, which sets into motion a process of getting restitution from responsible polluters.

“The goal of Superfund is to ensure that polluters pay for cleanup, not the taxpayer,” she said.

Photo, New York Times.

The New York Times Magazine features a piece today on the Gowanus Canal, and the environmental debate surrounding it as of late. How great is the photo? It’s the canal like I’ve never seen it.

“It’s this area of transition,” a real estate broker named William Duke told me recently. It was a warm weekday evening in September, and we were standing at the trash-strewn terminus of a street that dead-ends into the waterway. “Between the old and the new, the natural world and the man-made world,” Duke went on. “It’s poetic.”

Tomorrow, June 13, is the first-ever fundraiser held by PortSide NewYork, a young, innovative non-profit organization with diverse programs are about water and the waterfront. PortSide NewYork plans to create waterfront access, arts and recreational boating events, jobs, historical products and policy-programs for diverse economic groups and individuals. The fundraiser is taking place tomorrow evening from 6-9 pm at the Brooklyn Lyceum (227 Fourth Avenue @ President Street in Park Slope). Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, a major supporter of all things waterfront, will speak at the event, which will include food and wine. A large format multimedia installation of images and sounds from PortSide and the harbor will bring the waterfront inside. Proceeds from the fundraiser will support planning and interim programming in Atlantic Basin and shipping of the last two engine cylinders for the Whalen from Seattle. Tickets are $50 and may be purchased here. If you’re free tomorrow, go and show your support!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to add Brooklyn’s very own Gowanus Canal to its Superfund National Priority List (NPL).

EPA: “By proposing to list the Gowanus Canal, EPA can ensure that a thorough investigation into the source and extent of the contamination can take place,” said Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “The sooner we get the listing underway, the sooner EPA can begin its work, so that one day the Gowanus Canal can be used again to benefit the people of Brooklyn.”

A 60-day comment period begins today for the EPA to receive public input regarding the addition of the Gowanus Canal to the Superfund NPL. For instructions on how to submit comments, visit here, or or contact Dennis Munhall, Region 2 NPL Coordinator at (212) 637-4343 or munhall.dennis@epa.gov.