Green Haze: Modest Progress And Massive Disinformation At America's Most Polluted Port Complex

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 13:00

After years of intense activism--and a stunning lawsuit victory by lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on behalf of local residents and environmentalist--the ports have dramatically changed directions.  They now want to kill a whole lot less people, provided that their clients can keep making money hand over fist.  They claim much, much more than that, rheotically, though.  And, of course, the folks who started all the trouble in the first place remain a tad upset that after all is said and done, we will still have incredibly dirty air, with thousands of people dying every year as a result.

In short, it's an interesting microcosm of how a corrupt system does major policy change.  On the flip is a brief story I wrote for the last issue of Random Lengths News, reporting on a public comment hearing for the combined state and federal environmental reviews required for a new terminal project at the Port of Long Beach.

The rhetoric/reality gap is depressingly familiar, but the activists involved, far from giving up, and only getting increasingly powerful.  If we can pull this sort of dynamic off on the national level, then an Obama presidency really can start moving us in a more progressive direction, regardless of what his real intentions are.  So I offer this snapshot as a ray of hope, ironically, despite the grim reality of the fight involved.

A dense green haze of environmental disinformation descended on Silverado Park in West Long Beach on June 18, as the Port of Long Beach (POLB) held a public comment meeting for its proposed Middle Harbor Redevelopment project, which would combine and expand the operations of two exising terminals.

The meeting-intended to take comments on the project's massive environmental report (DEIR/DEIS)-was dominated by industry representatives, portraying themselves as ardent environmentalists, parroting talking points that had knowledgeable activists rolling their eyes in disbelief.

"These clean air technologies haven't been used anywhere else in the world," claimed former Port of Los Angeles (POLA) Executive Director Larry Keller, echoing a claim made by several other industry representatives. Even more widespread was the claim that the project would reduce truck traffic by 1,000 trucks a day,

Both claims are demonstrably false.

The "1,000 trucks per day" claim was made on POLB's "fact sheet" handed out at the door, as well as in its press release.  In fact, the project would envisions an increase of over 3,500 trucks per day, but also includes a modest increase in on-dock rail without which the increase would be substantially greater.

After the meeting, POLB's Director of Environmental Planning, Richard Cameron, who chaired the meeting, conceded to Andrea Hricko, a professor at USC's Keck School of Medicine, that this figure was misleading and should be removed.  However, the fact sheet was unchanged on POLB's website as of the following Monday morning.

Yet, that was only the most outward and visible sign of an inward lack of environmental and economic honesty in the project.

The claim that the project would set world-wide standards is a more nebulous one, but is clearly at odds with well-known facts involving major aspects of the planned project.  For example, shoreside electrical power ("cold ironing") was first introduced at the Swedish port of Göteborg as early as 2000.  The introduction of low-sulfur fuels (LSF) in ship engines was first announced by the Danish firm Maersk, as part of a voluntary world-wide initiative, at a time when POLA and POLB were still calling the shift unfeasible.  Furthermore, the project's greenhouse gas (GHG) projections amount to more than a four-fold increase over 2005 levels, while the city and port of Rotterdam are committed to halving their GHG output from 1990 levels by 2025. There is no provision at all for monorail or other zero-emission technologies that are actively being tested by European ports today.

Keller was only one of several industry representatives who falsely portrayed the project-which would not be completed until 2019-as setting worldwide standards.

Getting down to brass tacks, a close look at figures within the DEIR/DEIS clearly contradict claims of both dramatic job growth and a clean environment.

For example, the fact sheet also included claims that it would "Create about 14,000 permanent jobs in Southern California."  Yet, Table 1.6-1, on page 1-19 shows that the project would produce just 366 jobs more than the "no project" alternative.

Similarly, charts comparing the daily pollution from the project in 2030 (Table 3.2-18 on p. 3.2-35) with those for the "no project" alternative (Table 3.2-52 on p. 3.2-101), show significantly higher levels for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO) and oxides of nitrogen (NOX), despite the "fact sheet" claim that the project would "Cut air pollution from two Port container terminals by 50 percent or more."

A major reason for this situation is that the project does little more than provide for implementing changes already required in the port's Clean Air Action Plan-a shortcoming that was directly criticized by Dr. Steve Smith, representing the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Smith also joined other critics in calling for an extension of the review period, currently scheduled to close on July 11.