2 Ports Split on How to Clear the Air

The nation’s two largest seaports are pursuing different strategies to reduce air pollution, worrying environmental officials and residents who say that the lack of coordination could harm efforts to clean the air throughout the Los Angeles Basin.

Some fear the division will lead to conflicting regulations and a scenario in which dirtier ships could choose the port with weaker standards.

Taken together, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are side by side in San Pedro Bay, are the largest source of air pollution in Southern California. And the decades-old rivalry between them is evident as they forge separate plans to clean the air.

The two ports recently conducted expensive surveys of the pollution they produce, using the same consulting firm. But one port chose to study the year 2001, and the other 2002, making comparisons impossible.

The ports are using different methods to measure pollution.

And Los Angeles has asked regional air regulators to help craft its plan, while Long Beach has not.

In the most dramatic sign of bad communication, Long Beach declined a recent invitation from Los Angeles to join in its much-publicized clean-air effort, spurning the opportunity to develop a unified approach.

The gulf between the ports became clear last Tuesday as Long Beach City Council members struggled to decipher the air-pollution plan forged by a Los Angeles task force five days earlier. No one from the port or city of Long Beach attended the task force’s sessions, which had been held six miles away.

The lack of coordination is frustrating residents and environmental officials, who point out that the tons of diesel fumes and nitrogen oxides from the two ports do not respect geographic boundaries; together they cause life-threatening respiratory problems across the region.

“It all goes into the same air,” said Peter M. Greenwald, senior policy advisor at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. He said he fears that shippers would use whatever port has less-stringent rules, undermining his agency’s clean-air efforts.

San Pedro activist Janet Gunther implored Long Beach officials last week to work with Los Angeles. “To continue denying you are one port becomes a little bit ridiculous. Look at a map! It’s just one port.”

Some observers, however, think the variances between the approaches taken by the two ports are largely cosmetic.

“For the most part, I would argue that the differences are very minor,” said T.L. Garrett, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn., which represents owners and operators of U.S. and foreign vessels operating in the Pacific Basin.

“I do think that the programs are in sync with one another,” said Garrett, who until January was in charge of the air resources section in the environmental planning division at the Port of Los Angeles.

Neither port has formally compared evolving plans, although Long Beach planners are assembling a point-by-point comparison in response to a City Council request.

But officials are nonetheless sparring over who has the better plan.

Long Beach port officials are dismissive of much of the Los Angeles plan, saying it contains many measures that are likely to become state or federal regulations.

But Los Angeles officials bristle at that comment, contending that they will put these measures in place regardless of whether they become law.

In addition, Long Beach officials say their plan is more realistic.

“It’s my opinion that we’re less words and more action,” said Robert Kanter, Long Beach port planning director. For example, he said, Los Angeles planners are eyeing the potential for electrifying the Alameda Corridor to reduce railroad emissions. Neither port has the power to accomplish such a project, he said.

“There are some radical ideas, pie-in-the-sky ideas, that I don’t think are likely to take place in the near term,” he said.

That characterization irks Ralph Appy, director of port environmental management in Los Angeles, who notes that his port invited its rival to join its six-month planning effort.

“If they thought this was all pie in the sky, they should have been over here. They could have set us all straight,” he said.

Port air pollution is attracting considerable attention, especially in the wake of studies showing a high risk of respiratory ailments in the port area. Rapid growth at both ports, spurred largely by imports from Asia, has increased emissions of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides from ships, trains and trucks. The problem is increasing not only near the port but also along freeways and near warehouses as far east as Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Ports and shippers are adopting cleaner methods of moving cargo, but those advancements are outstripped by growth, and cargo shipments are expected to triple by 2025.

Staff members at both ports say they work together frequently, as in their current effort to bring cleaner-burning locomotives to the ports.

Still, the two remain fierce competitors, and Los Angeles recently edged ahead of Long Beach to seize the title of the nation’s largest seaport. Los Angeles wooed the shipping giant Maersk Sealand away from Long Beach in 2002, and its rival scored a coup a year later by bringing Carnival Cruise Lines to Long Beach.

Now that rivalry is surfacing again.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn last summer charged a task force with reducing port pollution to 2001 levels. The draft plan approved March 3 would employ 65 measures to reach the 2001 goal sometime between 2009 and 2011. The group is still researching the costs of those measures and what legislation would be needed to implement them.

The Long Beach policy, by contrast, does not list specific anti-smog measures but outlines major goals that the port has set, including “protect the community from harmful side effects of port operations” and “employ best available technology to minimize environmental impacts.”

At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Matt Haber, deputy director of the regional air division, said that although the two ports are pursuing different approaches, their objectives are the same. He commended the new Long Beach policy, noting the emphasis on “best available technology.”

But Long Beach council members -- clearly wary of trailing Los Angeles -- grilled their port representatives last week to explain how their new “green port” policy compared with L.A.’s. Some were puzzled by the absence of concrete pollution reduction goals, a concern echoed by environmentalists and residents in the audience.

“The report I heard tonight has no sense of urgency or immediacy,” complained Regina Taylor, a resident of Long Beach’s Wrigley area.

Council member Rae Gabelich asked port representatives to explain why they did not accept the invitation from Los Angeles. One official responded that she was unaware an invitation was delivered. Another said he did not know about the meeting last week.

Gabelich was not appeased.

“If we can’t even keep track of each other’s meetings,” she retorted, “how are we going to keep track of goals and objectives?”

A Long Beach port official promised Friday that a representative would attend the next meeting of the Los Angeles task force.

Some Long Beach critics also point out that the Los Angeles port invited the regulatory “heavies” -- the Air Quality Management District, the state Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -- to participate. The agencies, whose support could be crucial in implementing plans, played a major role in reviewing technologies and crafting measures.

“It’s pretty clear that the port of L.A. has involved us to a greater degree in their decision-making. We think that’s a good thing,” the AQMD’s Greenwald said.

He added that he is seriously concerned that the absence of coordination will lead to unequal standards. “We do think it can undermine the controls to have differing levels of stringency,” he said.

Air district officials cite, by way of example, the Los Angeles proposal that ships arriving at the port slow down 40 miles offshore to reduce air pollution, a measure that could become mandatory. Both ports now ask ships to voluntarily slow down 20 miles away.

The Los Angeles plan would subsidize cleaner vehicles using both ports. The port already has allocated more than $21 million to a regional program that has replaced 350 trucks.

The Long Beach port has not contributed. Clean-air activists say that places the burden unfairly on Los Angeles, because many of the participating truckers serve both ports.

Long Beach port spokesman Art Wong said the port had planned to contribute to the program to offset emissions from a pier expansion that has been delayed. He did not rule out future support.

“These are things we are exploring,” Wong said. “This ‘green’ policy says we want leadership in environmental protection, and we have to figure out how to do that.”