Port Terminal Seeks to Drop Dust Control Pact

After promising to build domes to control dust pollution, officials of a major coal and petroleum coke terminal at the Port of Los Angeles no longer want to install the roofs, saying the project is now too expensive and the facility is being unfairly singled out by air quality regulators.

Representatives of the Los Angeles Export Terminal filed a formal request Thursday with the South Coast Air Quality Management District to change the facility’s air pollution control plan, worked out last year with wide support from citizens in harbor communities.

The move angered community activists and irritated air quality officials, who had granted the company its permit based in part on its willingness to install the roofs.

AQMD officials described the request as “highly unusual” at such a late date--groundbreaking for the domes was to begin by July 31. They said they were skeptical of the firm’s effort to modify the agreement on reducing the dust from piles of petroleum coke.

“They are going to face a rocky road on this,” said Carol Coy, an assistant deputy at the AQMD who worked on the terminal’s pollution control plan.

News of the company’s about-face has already circulated among harbor area residents and community activists, many of whom worked for years to get the coke piles covered.

“They are real turncoats, aren’t they?” said Gertrude Schwab, president of the Wilmington North Neighborhood Assn. “This is the dirtiest air in the whole United States, and now they don’t want to do this. Baloney.”

Residents and workers in the harbor area are concerned about the potential health effects of petroleum coke, a byproduct of the refinery process that can be used as fuel for heating and industrial purposes. Among other things, the fine coke particles, which can travel far in the wind, can aggravate respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.

“We don’t like it,” said Mike Willis, a U.S. Customs Service employee and president of the National Treasury Employees Union. “Those coke piles are right behind our building and parking lot. We are very concerned, because we are already in a very polluted area.”

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After citizens groups, workers at port facilities and AQMD officials became concerned about air quality around the new shipping terminal, the company agreed in December to build two domes over its petroleum coke piles.

At the time, AQMD Chairman William A. Burke called the development a victory for the port community as well as a tribute to his agency’s recently adopted environmental justice initiative to respond better to community concerns.

On Thursday, Burke said that the AQMD will review the company’s request and that, if the facts are the same as last year, the board will probably move to enforce the agreement. He also said the AQMD will consider suing the firm.

“I was kind of shocked when I heard about this,” Burke said. “You just don’t wake up one morning and change your mind after all the work that has been done.”

Company officials, who received their AQMD permit to handle petroleum coke on the condition that they provide the domes, contend that the roofs are no longer needed.

Chief Executive Gerald Swan said the domes have also become too expensive, their cost having risen from $14 million to $19 million while the terminal’s revenues from coke and coal exports to Asia have dropped.

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According to the company, existing pollution controls, including elaborate sprinkler systems to reduce dust, have been effective at keeping the terminal within AQMD standards.

Swan said the facility also has been unfairly singled out for more stringent controls while other coal and petroleum coke terminals around the port do not have to build roofs.

AQMD official Coy disputed the claim of unfairness, saying the other petroleum coke piles are at facilities that received their permits well before the Los Angeles Export Terminal started handling petroleum coke in January.

The AQMD has been reviewing the older terminals’ operations annually and may require them to install enclosures in the future because of new federal standards.

John Barbieri, a longtime resident of San Pedro and a member of the community organization Port Watch, said he felt betrayed by Los Angeles Export’s effort to change its plans.

Barbieri said he doubted that the cost of the roofs has escalated as rapidly as company officials maintain. When he and other community activists met with terminal operators Wednesday afternoon, he said, they could not provide him any documentation on the cost estimates.

“It’s now clear they never had any intention of building the domes once they got their permit,” Barbieri said. “We are going to have to deal with all of this again.”