San Pedro Chamber, Residents Leery of 2020 Plan’s Impact : Harbor: Letters to the Army Corps of Engineers urge more economic and environmental study of the $4.8-billion port expansion proposal.

The proposed $4.8-billion expansion of Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, already assailed by residents at a recent public hearing, is now under fire from San Pedro business leaders and a homeowners coalition.

In separate letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the San Pedro Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and the San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners Coalition have urged the corps to reevaluate the need for the project and provide assurances that it will not irreparably damage the environment.

“We are not opposing the plan, but we are raising some issues,” Leron Gubler, executive director of the chamber, said in an interview.

Added Jerry Gaines, president of the homeowners coalition: “We are not saying, ‘Don’t do anything in San Pedro.’ But we are questioning whether the project, as discussed, is environmentally sound.”

The concerns have arisen as the Corps of Engineers finalizes its report on the so-called 2020 Project and determines whether it should recommend funding by Congress. As envisioned, the project would deepen the harbors by dredging and double the size of Terminal Island by adding 2,600 acres of landfill to accommodate 38 new terminals.

The corps has generally supported the project as a way of preparing for continued growth of cargo shipments at the ports. The proposed expansion has also been strongly backed by the shipping industry and area politicians, including Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

But at an Oct. 9 hearing in San Pedro, many residents questioned the scope of the project and the undeniable impact it would have on surrounding communities. The letters from the chamber and the homeowners group also urge that port and federal officials carefully weigh the environmental and economic consequences of enlarging the ports for commerce.

“The chamber supports the concept of a 2020 Plan. We recognize the need for a comprehensive long-range plan to provide for the growth of the ports,” chamber President Gary Larson wrote the Corps of Engineers on Nov. 27.

“However, there are various aspects of the plan that trouble us,” Larson added, citing a chamber report that calls for more study of the 2020 Project’s impact on air quality, traffic, recreational boating and commercial fishing.

In addition, the letter said, the Corps of Engineers and port officials should specifically examine the “socioeconomic impacts” of the project on San Pedro and Wilmington rather than focusing on its consequences for the region as a whole. Otherwise, the chamber said, the project’s impact on local communities will be hard to determine.

The chamber report noted that growth of the Port of Los Angeles during the 1980s proved to be an economic wellspring for the region, but San Pedro lost more than 7,000 jobs with the closure of Todd Shipyards and cutbacks at Star-Kist Foods.

And with the decline of San Pedro’s traditional maritime industries, the chamber letter said, the community has turned more toward tourism--an industry that most likely would suffer under the 2020 Project’s current focus on commercial shipping.

“The point we want to make,” Gubler said, “is that while there are some very positive aspects to the 2020 plan, there are also some potentially negative impacts. And one that comes to mind is that while shipping will increase, marine recreation will suffer.”

Similar concerns over the project’s local impact were raised in a two-page letter this week from the homeowners coalition, which represents 22 homeowner groups in San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes. The letter follows a study of the project by several coalition members, including Dr. Robert Goldberg, medical director of the Los Angeles city occupational health and safety office.

Noting that the 2020 Project would relocate hazardous materials to a vast new landfill, the coalition warned that simply moving the materials from their current site poses a danger. Moreover, the coalition noted that the new landfill will significantly reduce the waterways available to recreational boaters at a time when the port is planning to expand Cabrillo Marina.

“We believe other observations can be made about the project that seriously question the merit of the federal government” investing in it, the coalition said in its letter. Those include doubts about constructing new landfills when, the coalition said, more than 100 acres of land in Wilmington and Terminal Island is now “being used inefficiently for auto storage.”

“Our point,” said Gaines in an interview, “is that the project needs more study.”

While Corps of Engineers officials continue to discuss the project with the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies, the concerns of local residents and businesses will be addressed in a final report on the project, a corps spokesman said Thursday. That report is due to be completed by the end of January and eventually forwarded to Congress.

If funding is approved by Congress and construction permits are granted by state and federal agencies, work on the project is scheduled to begin in 1994.