Bill Would Cap Pollution at Ports at 2004 Levels

California legislators may soon decide whether to force the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to limit the amount of air pollution from ships, trucks and equipment with a bill that is pitting health and environmental groups against the ports and other business interests.

The measure, believed to be the first in the nation, would require the country’s largest seaport complex -- the biggest single air polluter in the Los Angeles region -- to keep its air emissions at or below 2004 levels.

The bill, AB 2042, does not tell the ports how to control pollution but says emissions must hold steady even as the ports expand. Indeed, both ports are planning to add hundreds of acres of container terminals because the amount of cargo is expected to quadruple by 2025.

The bill is drawing attention nationwide because many ports on the East, West and Gulf coasts are expanding rapidly to accept soaring amounts of imports, triggering public concern about the health effects of diesel fumes and other port-related pollutants. Some residents close to the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have nicknamed the area “the Diesel Death Zone.”

In Sacramento, the bill by Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) may be debated on the Senate floor as early as today.

It is the most tangible example to date of mounting tensions between the port complex and residents from San Pedro to San Bernardino, who blame the ports for the truck traffic and pollution in their communities.

The measure is opposed by port and industry groups that argue it could eliminate jobs, raise costs and weaken the area economy. Clean air activists and local residents call the bill a necessity, citing studies linking diesel emissions from ships, trucks and trains with an abnormally high cancer risk around the ports and area freeways. Experts blame diesel fumes for 71% of the cancer risk associated with air pollution in the Los Angeles region.

A 1999 study by the South Coast Air Quality Management District found the lifetime cancer risk from air pollution in the port area to be higher than 2,000 cases per million people. The study relied on air testing, analysis and computer modeling, not on actual deaths, because many cancers take years or decades to develop.

Federal, state and local agencies typically regulate facilities with the goal of reducing the cancer risk to between 1 and 100 cases per million.

The AQMD requires individual facilities to reduce their cancer risk to below 25 cases per million. The ports are not bound by that requirement because, unlike refineries and chemical plants, they are not considered individual, fixed facilities.

Lowenthal said he decided the state should take action after he saw an AQMD map showing the sharply higher cancer risk in San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach and in strips alongside freeways used by big rigs carrying cargo from the ports.

“It was overwhelming. Shocking,” he said. “There are potentially thousands of people dying that we could prevent. We’ve got to deal with an out-of-control situation.”

The bill has the support of the AQMD, the Coalition for Clean Air and the city councils of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It is also backed by clean-air activists as far east as the Inland Empire, where diesel pollution is mounting from big-rig trucks and railroads serving hundreds of new cargo warehouses and distribution centers.

“We don’t seem to be cleaning up port contamination. We just seem to be spreading it around,” said Penny Newman, executive director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice in Riverside.

Ships serving the ports use some of the dirtiest, most polluting forms of diesel fuel, said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, assistant vice president of the American Lung Assn. of California, which supports the bill.

“This is actually a modest bill,” Holmes-Gen said. “It’s not saying, ‘You need to reduce emissions’ -- which would be nice.”

Port and other business groups counter that the bill could create a mishmash of regulations and impose a “no-growth” mandate for the port complex, which has become one of the largest economic engines in the region.

“This measure, as written, would have serious negative effects on jobs and the economy of the state and the nation,” the California Chamber of Commerce wrote in a July 27 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which passed the bill last week by a 7-6 vote.

The California Department of Transportation, in a July 16 letter to Lowenthal, expressed similar fears. The state Department of Finance also opposes the bill, as does the Port of Long Beach, the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Western States Petroleum Council.

Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the state Environmental Protection Agency, did not respond to questions as to whether the bill is supported by the agency or its secretary, longtime environmentalist Terry Tamminen.

The Port of Los Angeles has remained neutral so far, and a spokeswoman at the governor’s office said Friday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has not yet taken a position.

Industry officials say that the ports should not be penalized because of mounting demand for imported goods.

“The ports don’t create growth,” said John McLaurin, president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn., which represents West Coast shipping companies and terminal operators. “They respond to the growth that’s taking place. They’re serving the additional population base and consumer demand.”

The port industry began taking steps to reduce diesel emissions well before Lowenthal introduced his bill, McLaurin and others said. They pointed to a voluntary reduction in ship speed near the ports, cleaner-burning terminal equipment and the decision by two shipping firms to incorporate technology allowing their ships to plug into on-shore electric power and turn off their diesel engines in port.

The bill is not the first effort to put a ceiling on local port pollution. Three years ago, Mayor James K. Hahn endorsed a policy of “no net increase” in emissions, vowing to hold the Los Angeles port to its 2001 emissions levels. But the port did not produce a plan for reaching that goal until last month, and Hahn rejected it Thursday, ordering the port to prepare a new plan by the end of the year.

Friction continues between the ports and their neighbors.

The Los Angeles port’s current environmental review of a 68-acre project has angered San Pedro and Wilmington residents, who say that review severely understates how much air pollution it would create.

In Long Beach, residents are calling on the City Council to overrule the city Harbor Commission’s approval of a 115-acre project at Pier J.

The Lowenthal bill would require the AQMD to set a baseline for air quality, using the 2004 level of emissions in the two ports. That limit would go into effect by January 2006.

The district, the ports and the state Air Resources Board would have to agree how emissions would be stabilized or reduced. If no agreement is reached, the ports would have to develop their own baselines, to be approved by the air district.

Lowenthal said that he is confident that the ports, shippers and regulators can find new ways to reduce air pollution.

“If we want growth, which we do, we have to figure out a way that we can do it, which we can do,” he said. “Otherwise, the air is always going to be dirtier than it is now. Which is crazy.”