Port of L. A. terminal met pollution goal despite unfulfilled remedy steps

TIN news:    The Port of Los Angeles met air-pollution reduction targets at one of its busiest terminals despite failing to take a number of steps it had agreed to impose to control emissions, the port’s top official says.
Emissions are at or below levels contemplated when the port approved the expansion of the China Shipping terminal in 2008, Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka said in an interview Wednesday. He said the port’s air-quality measurements show pollution has declined to “levels that were even better than what we attempted to produce.”
Seroka’s comments come after The Times reported this week that the port has failed to carry out 11 of 52 measures required following a legal settlement more than a decade ago to limit the effects of pollution, noise and traffic from the terminal on nearby communities such as San Pedro and Wilmington.
Environmental groups and homeowners, who years ago filed suit against the terminal expansion, say public health has probably suffered because air emissions could have been even lower if the port had done what it promised.
“We want to know exactly how much pollution was released and what health impacts that might have had,” said Mark Lopez, executive director of the group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.
The port will examine whether emissions reductions could have been larger if all the measures were carried out.
“That’s a real possibility,” Seroka said, but he disputed the suggestion that there have been any health consequences.
Seroka said the problems are unique to the China Shipping terminal. Nonetheless, he has directed his staff to review another terminal, operated by TraPac, where the port approved an expansion project in 2007. The publicly owned port, run as a department of the city, has eight container terminals that operate under long-term leases.
The port on Thursday released details on how the China Shipping terminal fell short of meeting a series of deadlines going back several years, including mandates for less-polluting natural gas and alternative-fueled trucks and yard tractors.
In one emissions-reduction measure, the port agreed to require all vessels to slow down as they approach the port by 2009. The China Shipping terminal achieved only 20% compliance by that year, but increased to 96% by 2014, the port said.
In another instance, the port had agreed to require all ships to shut down their engines and plug into onshore electricity when docked to reduce harmful emissions by 2011. Compliance was as low as 12% in 2012, but jumped to 98% last year, officials said.
On other requirements, including the use of cleaner yard tractors and equipment, the terminal did not fall out of compliance until this year.
The port first disclosed the shortcomings in a recent environmental notice, which said some of the measures had turned out to be difficult or impractical. Port officials are planning a new environmental review that will look at eliminating, revising or replacing the unmet requirements to achieve the same results.
The port did not revise its lease agreement with China Shipping North America, which operates the 130-acre terminal, to include the 52 provisions of the legal settlement.
The lease should have been amended to include those terms, Seroka said, adding that “a contract is a contract and it’s my duty now … to fix this issue and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
China Shipping did not return calls seeking comment.
Janet Gunter, a San Pedro resident and one of the plaintiffs in the case that led to the requirements, blames the lack of follow-through on the port and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the lawsuit in 2001 on the behalf of her, other homeowners and community groups.
She thinks a third party should be appointed to keep track of the port’s progress in carrying out the measures, “instead of the fox guarding the henhouse.”
David Pettit, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “in perfect hindsight, we should have checked on the port’s progress.” His group is studying the port’s compliance with requirements imposed on other recent expansion projects.
The port’s latest inventory show that emissions of diesel particulate matter have dropped 85% and smog-forming nitrogen oxides have fallen 52% since 2005.