Plan to Cut Port Smog to Be Unveiled

In an effort to put a lid on Southern California’s largest single source of air pollution, local, state and federal experts this week plan to unveil dozens of potential new rules and initiatives to cut smog from the fast-growing Los Angeles port complex.

In all, the proposals could cost billons of dollars and demand widespread changes at the nation’s busiest seaport.

One of the most novel ideas: a trade-in program to replace all trucks calling at the port with cleaner models built in 2004 or later. Replacing 1,000 trucks would cost $35 million to $40 million, and officials estimate that several thousand older trucks could be affected.

Other ideas would employ technology rarely, if ever, used in the United States, including new power sources for ships docked at the port or idling near shore. Some ideas, such as restrictions on fuels for ships and trucks, might require new state or federal legislation.

For the last two months, as they crafted their plan, which is scheduled to receive its first public airing Wednesday, experts from the port and state and federal air quality agencies have been meeting for six hours a week or more via telephone conference calls, huddled over spreadsheets, graphics and calculators in offices and conference rooms. One call in late November was expected to last two hours but lasted seven, interrupted only by a half-hour lunch break.

The experts, conscious of California’s reputation for innovative environmental rules, hope to produce a model of how to cut pollution at U.S. seaports, even as Asian imports continue to drive shipping to record levels.

“I can’t think of anything that’s more important for us to do right now,” said Ed Avol, a professor of preventive medicine at USC who is helping to prepare Wednesday’s presentation to a task force appointed by Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. “This will really set the tone for how other ports deal with pollution.”

The stakes are high. Although toxic emissions from cars and other sources have dropped dramatically in recent years, the Los Angeles area is still beset with the worst air pollution of any U.S. metropolitan area.

The fast-growing Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex is not only the largest air polluter in Southern California, it is one of the few where emissions are “large and growing,” said Michael Scheible, deputy executive director of the state Air Resources Board.

In 2001, ships and other sources of pollution at the Port of Los Angeles produced an estimated 1,000 tons of particulates, specks of dust and soot that can be inhaled deep into the lungs and increase the risk of cancer and heart disease. By 2025, as port traffic continues to soar, the amount of particulates, much of which comes from diesel exhaust, could more than double, to 2,724 tons, according to worst-case projections.

Similarly, emissions of nitrogen oxides, a key component of smog, could increase from 20,000 tons in 2001 to 39,700 tons in 2025, the projections show.

Hahn has pledged to keep emissions from the port at 2001 levels -- a level the port already has far exceeded. When residents complained last summer that city and port officials were doing little to achieve the goal, Hahn assembled a 28-member task force including representatives from the shipping industry, labor, the community and environmental groups and charged them with deciding by the end of this year how to reduce port pollution.

For the last two months, out of public view, the team of experts that will report to Hahn’s task force has been studying how to reduce pollution at the port and along freeways and railroad lines across the region.

Aside from its sheer scope, what makes the initiative so unusual is that experts from local, state and federal regulatory agencies are working closely with the port staff. Typically, the port would produce a plan that would then be reviewed by those agencies.

“What it shows is there’s a sense of the importance of this, and a sense that we have to move quickly,” said one of the experts, Peter Greenwald, a senior policy advisor at the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The bulk of the work has been done by a group of technical experts from the port and the three major agencies overseeing air quality: the South Coast air district, the state Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Showcasing an array of measures, from the use of low-sulfur fuel to cleaner-burning engines, the experts hope to show the task force how to close the gap between the amount of pollution three years ago and the amount expected by 2025.

Both the shipping industry and Hahn have incentives to support the cleanup effort. In the last two years, growth of the port and the neighboring Port of Long Beach have sparked an intense debate over how to weigh the economic benefits of moving goods through the Los Angeles region against the costs to public health. Residents from San Pedro to Riverside have castigated government and business leaders for what they see as an emphasis on moving goods rather than cleaning the air. Industry officials fear the outcry could derail key transportation projects such as the Long Beach Freeway expansion or lead to no-growth campaigns directed at the ports.

The political implications are significant for Hahn, who faces stiff competition in the March mayoral primary. Hahn’s opponents sharply criticized the mayor during a recent televised debate for what they termed his slowness in dealing with port pollution.

Air quality regulators say their unusual involvement in the project stems from their own concerns about increasing port pollution. The biggest polluters at the ports are diesel-burning ships. They are largely foreign-owned and unregulated by state or federal agencies. Other major sources, such as trucks and railroad locomotives, are bound by far less stringent regulations than cars.

The course of the debate over port pollution may hinge on the control methods the experts identify and how those measures are viewed in coming weeks by a variety of interests, including community groups and the shipping and railroad industries.

After Wednesday’s presentation, the task force will study the proposal and prepare a draft report for the mayor to be followed by public hearings. An array of government agencies and business groups would have to agree to the plan.

No one expects smooth sailing. Residents remain wary, although task force member Noel Park of San Pedro, a longtime port critic, said he is guardedly optimistic that the panel will produce useful information about how to control pollution.

“I’m less optimistic that programs will be implemented without some fierce budget fights,” said Park, who fears the effort will be undermined by what he describes as “political and legal maneuverings” by port officials and industry leaders.

Business representatives on the mayor’s task force also are taking a cautious approach.

Michele Grubbs, who represents the Pacific Maritime Shipping Assn., a trade group of shippers and terminal operators, wonders if the team is overestimating its pollution projections. Newer cargo ships are cleaner and carry more containers, meaning fewer ships emitting less pollution will be calling at the port, she said.

One major issue is how to pay for new control measures. Some task force members would like to see subsidies to industry to speed the adoption of controls. Others hope the federal government will step in, since the Los Angeles-Long Beach complex handles more than 40% of the nation’s international container trade.

The Wednesday presentation will include models of how the amount of pollutants might be reduced to 2001 levels by the years 2008, 2010 and 2012, said Christopher Patton, a port staff environmental expert on the technical team.

Some team members were planning to work through the holiday weekend to complete those models, Patton said. “Everyone is holding their breath, wanting to see how close we get,” he said. “I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll have something that demonstrates that it can be done, without some draconian measures like putting growth caps on, but that’s always in the wings.”