Economy vs. Ecology at Center of Conflict Over Expansion of Port

The Port of Los Angeles’ plans for a $2-billion expansion--the state’s largest coastal development proposal in at least 20 years--have sparked a heated debate over whether the project’s economic benefits would outweigh its environmental consequences.

The expansion hinges on a $550-million dredging and landfill project that is part of the port’s so-called 2020 Plan to deepen shipping channels and enlarge Terminal Island by 580 acres over the next 30 years.

Though the port project has been significantly scaled back from an earlier $4.8-billion proposal, area residents and representatives of the state Coastal Commission and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service remain skeptical whether the huge expansion can take place without significantly disrupting marine life and the coastal environment.

“At this point, it’s fair to say the project has improved in its design, scope and size” from the earlier proposal, said Larry Simon, the Coastal Commission’s ports coordinator.

“But clearly, there are several issues of great concern to us,” Simon said, noting that the commission staff has reservations about approving such a huge, 30-year project all at once rather than in stages.

The expansion, proposed by the port and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be taken up by the Coastal Commission next month. The project will be the largest ever considered by the commission, which was formed in 1972, Simon said.

As a prelude to the commission meeting, a public hearing was held Monday night in San Pedro where more than 100 people debated for more than two hours over the merits of the project and a voluminous Environmental Impact Report.

Without the expansion, the port’s employment and Los Angeles’ economy will suffer greatly in the coming years as businesses relocate to other cities, according to waterfront employers, union officials and others at the hearing.

“I don’t know a lot about engineering. But I do know how employers think. They will go to another port that offers them a bigger, more modern terminal. It’s that simple,” said Dave Miller, president of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local 63.

But as vigorously as people such as Miller praised the project, other residents argued that it remains too big and environmentally disruptive to justify approval by state and federal agencies. And several also challenged projections that the proposed expansion would raise port-related employment from the current 42,000 jobs to as many as 250,000 jobs.

“I hear a lot about job creation,” said Joe Puerta, a member of Friends of San Pedro Bay. “Well, I also remember (former President Reagan’s pledge) to cut taxes, increase defense and balance the budget. And $2 trillion later, I don’t trust the government’s number crunchers.”

The port’s expansion plans have been on the drawing board for years, but the 2020 project--and the Corps’ dredging and landfill proposal--were dramatically curtailed last year after a $4.8-billion proposal was judged too environmentally damaging by several agencies, including the Coastal Commission’s staff.

The new project, which no longer includes the Port of Long Beach, calls for beginning an ambitious 10-year dredging and construction schedule in Los Angeles Harbor in 1994. Key elements of that proposal include deepening the port’s shipping channels to as much as 81 feet in order to accommodate huge oil tankers, expanding Terminal Island to provide more land for shippers, and relocating some port facilities, including those dealing in hazardous fuels, to more remote areas of the port.

The project’s environmental impact report, issued two weeks ago by the Corps, concludes that while the dredging and landfill will have some short-term consequences during construction, the port and the region will be well-served over time by the project. The new shipping lanes and relocation of facilities, the report suggests, will ultimately reduce the volume of both marine and truck traffic in the port, lowering the threat of offshore spills and cutting down air pollution.

And though the project will result in the loss of some 570 acres of recreational boating space and disturb some marine life, the report also says those impacts can be offset or reduced to insignificant levels. Other areas of the port could be opened up, or new habitats could be created at sites such as the Ballona Wetlands near Marina del Rey and Batiquitos Lagoon in San Diego County, the report suggests.

For proponents of the project, the overriding consideration has been its potential boon to the port’s commerce--a fact that was mentioned time and again during Monday’s hearing.

Indeed, some supporters of the project went so far as to suggest that the port’s expansion was an opportunity that could not be missed. “This is a project I’m surprised anybody could oppose,” said Richard Holdaway, president of Kaiser International Corp., a port tenant that is among a consortium of businesses looking to develop a new coal-exporting facility in the harbor.

But the project’s critics raised a number of objections both to its size and the Corps’ assessment of the environmental problems that could result from the expansion.

Describing the project as “ominous and foreboding,” Long Beach resident Dave Hall said the expansion threatens to turn the port into “nothing more than a container terminal” that will threaten various marine life, including the endangered least tern and California brown pelican.

“Never has our state’s coastal environment faced such a massive project with so much potential for harm,” said Hall, who called the Corps’ environmental report a “weak” document that is often a “whitewash” of possible environmental consequences.

Though those consequences have yet to be fully assessed by other agencies, the Coastal Commission’s Simon said this week that the agency’s staff continues to have concerns about the project’s scope and the notion of approving such a long-term project in one action.

“Clearly, this is the largest landfill ever to come before the Coastal Commission,” Simon said. “So we are concerned about its size and the fact that the Corps is asking the commission to concur with the entire project in August when some of the construction will not start until after the year 2000.”

Similarly, Jack Fancher, supervising biologist for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, said he remains concerned about the sheer size of the project and the need for clear proof that its environmental problems will be offset or reduced as much as possible.

“The landfills will have permanent wildlife loss that must be mitigated,” Fancher said.

The project is scheduled to come before the commission in mid-August at its meeting in Huntington Beach. On Wednesday, the commission will take a boat tour of the port in a visit that is open to a limited number of residents on a first-come, first-served basis.