The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reduced pollution while moving more cargo last year, according to new reports released this week.
The annual pollution scorecard shows the ports continue to make steady progress in clearing up the air around the nation’s busiest seaport and largest stationary polluter in the region, but it’s proving harder to make significant cuts in some areas.
“As emissions decline and cargo throughput rises, chipping away at what’s left gets tougher,” said Chris Cannon, director of environmental management at the Los Angeles port.
Since 2005, when the ports first began tracking pollution, diesel particulate matter emissions linked to asthma and other respiratory ailments dropped 87 percent in Los Angeles. Another harmful emission, sulfur oxides, has fallen 98 percent, and smog-forming nitrogen oxide declined 57 percent.
The Port of Long Beach posted similar findings.
Reasons for emissions cuts
Emissions have come down for several reasons, including less diesel-burning equipment along the docks, a program to reduce vessel speed and more cargo ships turning off their engines while at shore and plugging in to electrical sources. Officials also have been stressing greater efficiencies that conserve energy and burn less polluting fuel.
At the Port of Los Angeles, there’s an effort to digitize cargo data and place container boxes in off-site yards. Combined, the two create shorter wait times for truckers who would otherwise be idling, leaving their exhaust pipes to spew fumes.
But even as this year brought dramatic reductions of pollutants across the board there, carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change, actually has increased since 2010.
‘Challenge moving forward’
“That will be the biggest challenge moving forward,” Cannon said.
In 2015, both ports saw spikes in their pollution levels after a labor crisis backed up ships and left trucks idling.
The latest data from 2016 comes as officials at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports prepare to update a more than decade-old clean air plan.
Mayors of Los Angeles and Long Beach have said they want to see the port complex become a zero-emission zone by 2035, but the ports estimate it will cost as much as $14 billion to achieve that.
Much of those funds would be used to replace diesel-guzzling big rigs and dock equipment.
Last year at the Port of Los Angeles, 95 percent of all the trucks entering the docks were fueled by diesel. And about two-thirds of all vehicles used to handle cargo along the terminals ran on the fuel, which emits some of the most unhealthy pollutants. Only about 7 percent of the equipment is electric run, with zero emissions.
Environmentalists want electric
Environmentalists want to see nothing but electric vehicles used along the docks.
“This report continues to highlight the severity of air pollution coming from ports,” said Adrian Martinez, a lawyer at Earthjustice, a pro-environmental group. “When you look at how many of the vehicles run on combustible fuels, it really demonstrates the need to fullfil the mayors’ vision of getting true zero-emission.”
John McLaurin, head of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, a group representing marine terminal operators and shipping lines, sees it another way.
He called the clean air plan’s estimate “mind-boggling” and pointed to the strides made this year as evidence that reductions in pollution can be made without such a heavy investment.
“Reductions will continue in the future, but additional air quality improvements must balance cost with effectiveness to preserve the 1-in-9 jobs in the Southern California area that are dependent on a competitive port,” he said.
