To Reduce Health Risk at Ports and Across Southland
LONG BEACH – South Coast Air Quality Management District Governing
Board Chairman William A. Burke announced a Clean Port Initiative today,
signaling a major step forward in reducing emissions from the ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach.
“Reducing air pollution at the ports is the single most important
challenge facing us as we work to achieve healthful air quality in the
Southland,” Burke said. “AQMD’s Clean Port Initiative will build on
cleanup efforts to date and take them to a new level.”
Burke made his announcement at an historic meeting of the AQMD Board in
the Long Beach City Council Chambers – the first regular meeting of the
agency’s Board outside its headquarters in more than 25 years. The agency
took its Board “on the road” as part of Chairman Burke’s 2005 “AQMD is
Clearing the Air” initiative to bring the agency’s decision makers
directly to a community that is seriously impacted by air pollution.
Burke outlined AQMD’s Clean Port Initiative today, which includes four
guiding principles and seven action items. He also asked AQMD staff to
develop a proposed work plan to carry out the program and present it at
the January 6 Board meeting for Board approval.
The four guiding principles are:
- AQMD acknowledges the efforts of both ports to date in recognizing
their air pollution problem and taking initial steps to address it;
- The proposed No Net Increase plan for the Port of Los Angeles is a
good start, but it’s not enough. The ports need to reduce their
emissions to achieve clean air;
- The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach must pursue coordinated
emissions-reduction strategies to ensure equity and to prevent one port
from obtaining a competitive edge through less stringent environmental
standards; and
- The ports and shipping companies should bear their fair share of the
cost of cleanup, just as stationary sources do today.
The seven action items are:
- AQMD will request a Clean Port Summit meeting between Chairman
Burke, Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners President S. David
Freeman and Port of Long Beach Commission President Doris Topsy-Elvord
to discuss development and coordination of fast-track measures that can
be pursued now to reduce air pollution;
- If the ports do not act aggressively and in a timely, coordinated
manner to significantly reduce their emissions, AQMD staff will develop
regulations to the maximum extent of its authority to control port
sources, including ocean-going ships;
- Starting next year, AQMD staff will prepare a monthly report to the
public describing environmental impact reports and other California
Environmental Quality Act documents for projects related to goods
movement. In addition, AQMD staff will make full use of the CEQA
process for such projects to ensure that their impacts are thoroughly
mitigated;
- AQMD staff will work with the ports to conduct air quality
monitoring, not only outside the ports’ boundaries, but also within the
port terminals;
- AQMD will call on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt
strict emission standards for marine vessels. If EPA fails to do so,
AQMD will ask California’s Congressional delegation to sponsor
legislation or take other action to force EPA to take aggressive action;
- Focusing on the top three busiest ports in Asia, AQMD staff will
develop a proposal for joint emission reduction measures here and at
those Asian ports. AQMD will then coordinate an international summit
with Asian port officials to discuss how to implement these measures.
- AQMD will call on the state Legislature in 2006 to adopt a
shipping-container fee or some other mechanism that is sufficient to
fund cleanup at the ports.
Air Pollution at the Ports
The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex is the nation’s largest and its
ocean-going ships, trains, trucks and cargo handling equipment in the
aggregate are the No. 1 fixed source of air pollution in the Los Angeles
Basin.
Collectively, sources at the port are responsible for more than 100
tons per day of smog- and particulate-forming nitrogen oxides – more than
the daily emissions from all 6 million cars in the region.
Part of the reason for the ports’ No. 1 air pollution ranking is the
fact that some of its largest sources are virtually unregulated. Current
regulations require only a 6 percent reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions
from ocean-going ship engines, the largest source of port air pollution.
That is in contrast to adopted regulations requiring 97 percent and 98
percent reductions respectively for off-road engines and on-road
heavy-duty truck engines.
Due to robust and rapidly growing trade with Asia, goods movement is
projected go grow threefold at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
during the next 20 years. Emissions from virtually all other sources of
air pollution, from cars to consumer products, are projected to decrease
in the future in spite of rapid population growth. But nitrogen oxide
emissions at the Port of Los Angeles alone are projected to increase by 40
percent by 2025, unless aggressive measures are put into place in the near
future.
Another troubling aspect of air pollution at the ports is that much of
it is diesel exhaust, which contains many potent cancer-causing
chemicals. Port-related sources are responsible for about one-quarter of
all diesel emissions in the entire Los Angeles Basin. According to AQMD’s
Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study II, some of the areas with the highest
cancer risk are in and around the ports.
“The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the linchpin of air
quality for this region,” Burke said. “If we are not successful in
cleaning up the ports, we will fail to achieve clean air for millions of
Southern Californians for years to come.”
AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major
portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
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