Port Officials Will Meet to Address Legal Challenge

In an emergency closed-door meeting today, Los Angeles harbor commissioners will review a major shipping firm’s legal filing aimed at blocking the port’s current search for a tenant for a “green terminal.”

Commissioner Camilla Townsend said Monday that she and Commissioner Thomas Warren requested the meeting because of their concerns about the court petition filed last week by London-based P&O; Nedlloyd Container Line Ltd. in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The firm asked the court for an immediate halt in the selection process for a tenant for the site, but a Superior Court judge denied that request Monday and instead ordered a Dec. 30 hearing.

The P&O; Nedlloyd petition levels sweeping criticisms of the port’s prolonged search for a tenant for the prized Terminal Island site and charges that it appears to be favoring a rival shipper, Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp. It contends that a deputy for Mayor James K. Hahn interjected himself in talks between the port and P&O; Nedlloyd, directing a port representative to speak with Evergreen instead.

The tangled search for a shipping firm to occupy Berths 206-209 -- called the Matson site after a former tenant -- has drawn the attention of the city Ethics Commission, as well as federal and state investigators looking into claims of irregularities in port leasing practices.

Harbor commissioners initially planned to award the lease to P&O; Nedlloyd, which docks at Long Beach but has been seeking a permanent site at the adjoining Los Angeles port. In a closed-door December 2003 meeting, however, commissioners instead decided to open the process to other firms by conducting the port’s first-ever competitive bidding process for a terminal lease.

The port set strict standards for the process to ensure that the new terminal would produce less air pollution than other port operations. Bidders were told that their diesel-burning ships must be able to plug in to onshore electric power, a “green” technology known as cold ironing.

Of the four companies that bid for the project, only two -- P&O; Nedlloyd and another firm -- proposed cold ironing at the site, while Evergreen said it planned to plug in ships at an adjacent site.

Port interim Executive Director Bruce Seaton infuriated P&O; Nedlloyd and local clean-air groups Sept. 29 when he threw out all four bids, saying the process had been confusing and that he wanted to institute stricter environmental standards.

He launched a new bidding process that had less stringent requirements for cold ironing, but required ships using the terminal to reduce speed 40 miles offshore to reduce air pollution. Ships now are asked to slow down 20 miles offshore.

Clean-air groups protesting the decision to invalidate the bids wrote Hahn last week, claiming that their calculations show that the revised requirements will produce a terminal that is more polluting.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex is the biggest air polluter in Southern California.

Five bids were received last Friday and the commissioners are expected to make a decision next month.

Port spokesman Arley Baker said Monday that Seaton invalidated the initial round of bids because the first request for proposals was ambiguous.

A spokeswoman from the city attorney’s office, which is representing the port in the P&O; Nedlloyd matter, said Monday the port had the right to throw out the proposals. “It’s very rare that we would send something out again to rebid, but there’s nothing illegal about it,” said spokeswoman Katie Buckland.

The 3 p.m. meeting today will be closed to the public. Public comments will be taken at the start of the meeting.