Port Expansion Plan to Hurt Air Quality : Pollution: Report on $4.8-billion project says environmental damage will be even worse without it.

The proposed $4.8-billion expansion of Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors will further damage air quality in the region, displace marine life--including the endangered California least tern--and hurt fishing and water recreation in the nation’s busiest harbor, a lengthy environmental report on the project concludes.

At the same time, the report, prepared by port officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, outlines a series of measures to offset those consequences. It also contends that without the project, the region still would suffer environmental problems from the enormous and inevitable growth of shipping in coming years.

The almost 8,000-page report follows four years of study of the so-called 2020 project that the ports devised as a blueprint for development through the year 2020. The two-phased development plan ultimately calls for dredging the harbors to deepen its channels and nearly doubling the size of Terminal Island with 2,600 acres of landfill to accommodate 38 new terminals.

In analyzing the development, the environmental report said the need to expand and modernize the ports cannot be disputed.

Indeed, the report says, Southern California’s growth, its ever-increasing trade, especially with Pacific Rim nations, and the availability of new technologies for moving cargo faster and more safely all point to the need for adding to the ports’ facilities.

But if this is done, the report says, significant environmental problems, particularly with air quality, will inevitably result, beginning with 2020’s initial $3.5-billion phase, which would add 1,444 acres to Terminal Island through dredging and landfill in the harbors.

“The proposed dredge and landfill action would produce . . . significant air quality impacts,” the report said. It predicted that federal and state one-hour ozone standards, the state’s one-hour nitrogen dioxide limits and federal and state eight-hour carbon monoxide standards would be substantially exceeded.

The increase in ozone would affect the entire South Coast Air Basin, while the impact of the other pollutants would be limited to the local coastal area, the report said.

Initially, the report said, the air quality problems would be caused primarily by diesel-powered dredge equipment--a factor that could be offset by using electric-powered equipment, as the ports now plan to do.

But once the 2020 project is complete, the report said, air pollution will continue to be a significant problem because of increased shipping and ground transport of cargo.

A spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District said the agency has only begun its review of the environmental report and would not comment until the review is finished.

But AQMD’s Bill Kelly added that the agency will expect detailed plans for offsetting the pollution caused by the project.

The region’s population is forecast to grow by 50% in the next 20 years, Kelly said, and the AQMD has taken steps to protect the environment from new commerce by controlling new as well as old sources of pollution.

“We think we can do that with the port as with any other type of facility,” Kelly said. “Growth and healthful air quality are not incompatible.”

Ralph Appy, Los Angeles Harbor’s assistant director of environmental management, said port officials are mindful of the 2020 project’s expected impact on air quality. “It is a very difficult issue,” he said.

However, Appy noted that the environmental report shows air pollution in the region already exceeding federal and state standards for ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide.

He added that the 2020 project will produce fewer air pollution problems than piecemeal expansion of the harbors because it includes new technologies and joint developments such as a new rail and truck corridor from the ports to downtown Los Angeles along Alameda Boulevard.

Added Gordon Palmer, manager of master planning for Long Beach Harbor: “This project will cause a decrease in air quality. But if we do nothing, the problem will be even worse. And the reason for that is that there is going to be continuing growth in the Los Angeles region.”

The environmental report says the Southland’s five-county population will increase from 13.3 million in 1987 to more than 21 million in 2020, with annual shipping trade rising from 70 million metric tons to more than 200 million.

Michael Piszker, the Army Corps of Engineers study manager for the 2020 project, said the environmental report shows that the ports’ expansion plan provides enough benefits to merit support by the federal government, which is considering contributing $141 million toward the first phase.

“Granted, there are some environmental concerns, but when you weigh everything from the engineering to the environmental to the economics, I see this as a project that is in the best interest of the region,” Piszker said.

In addition to its forecast of air quality problems, the report said the 2020 project will pose “short- and long-term impacts” on marine life.

The dredging and landfill activity, for example, would eliminate ocean-bottom organisms for up to 10 years and might also affect some fish and the kelp bed within the San Pedro breakwater, the report said.

Moreover, it said, the project would significantly affect the California least tern by taking away its shallow foraging and breeding areas, and likewise disrupt the California brown pelican, which almost became extinct in this area in the 1970s because of DDT dumping in the harbor.

The potential disruptions to marine biology, port officials say, have already been partly addressed by plans for replacement habitats and other measures such as Los Angeles Harbor’s $30-million restoration of Batiquitos Lagoon in San Diego and Long Beach’s $5-million restoration of Anaheim Bay in Seal Beach. Additional mitigation measures are being studied, they said.

The environmental report added that the 2020 project will also affect commercial fishing and water recreation.

Constructing the landfills will destroy 37% to 43% of the live-bait fishing grounds in the outer harbor, the report said, with an additional, undetermined loss from dredging.

In addition, the churning of harbor waters by dredging could make anchovies leave the bay or relocate in habitats not accessible to commercial fishermen. “Overall impacts on the fishery are predicted to be long term and locally significant,” the report said.

Meanwhile, the report said, boaters would be deprived of 1,625 acres in the open harbor. The project also would affect fishing and diving along the middle breakwater, possibly forcing those activities and fishing barges to relocate.

The report said the 2020 project would increase noise and traffic, particularly during construction. But port officials say it would get much worse without expansion of Terminal Island and the Alameda Boulevard corridor.

Before formally recommending federal action on the project, the Corps of Engineers will hold a public meeting on the environmental report at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at Los Angeles Harbor Department headquarters, 425 S. Palos Verdes St., San Pedro.