Port of Los Angeles emissions show dramatic drops in most recent survey
The Port of Los Angeles has set new records for reducing harmful emissions from port-related activity, with diesel particulates down an unprecedented 85 percent in the past 10 years and sulfur oxides bordering on total elimination.
The latest pollution-reduction figures, contained in a report released Thursday, indicate the port not only has reached its 2014 goals but, in many cases, has hit its 2023 targets.
Christopher Cannon, director of the port’s Environmental Management Department, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he isn’t surprised.
“Our success has to be attributed to the fact that the port and business industry worked together in a collaboration to find ways to do this,” said Cannon, who began his career with the port in the early days of the pollution fight launched under former Mayor James Hahn in 2001. “There are a lot of very creative people in the business community.”
In addition to the 85 percent drop in particulate matter since 2005, sulphur oxides have plummeted 97 percent and nitrogen oxides emissions were down 52 percent in the same period, the port said in a news release.
The plan to cap port pollution at 2001 levels — called historic at the time — was rolled out on March 3, 2005. Some said it wasn’t feasible, noting it would be costly to businesses and necessarily would land heavy blows to ships, trucks and trains.
While begun under Hahn’s mayoral term, the push to cut port pollution ramped up significantly under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, under whose leadership the port adopted the San Pedro Bay Clean Air Action Plan.
Overall, the port’s progress has taken a concerted effort to employ new technologies that have included a clean-truck swap program, shore power, clean fuel requirements and moving to clean engines for trains.
Proven to work initially in voluntary programs, many of the emissions-reducing measures have gone on to become state regulations.
Requiring ships to slow down as they approach the port also made significant differences, Cannon said. In 2014, 95 percent of ships slowed to 12 knots within 20 nautical miles of the port and 84 percent did so within 20 to 40 nautical miles.
Indeed, much of the 2014 progress came from vessel emission reduction measures, including requiring ships to plug into shore power under state regulations that took effect Jan. 1, 2014.
At least half of container, refrigerated and cruise ships calling at California’s six largest ports are now required to run auxiliary engines on shore-based electricity, according to the port release.
“These measures were crucial to last year’s breakthrough’s because ships remain the largest single source of air pollution from port-related sources,” Cannon said in a statement. “The benefits of shore power are expected to grow in the coming years as the practice becomes routine and the state phases in higher mandatory compliance rates.”
But the work isn’t over.
“We’ve got to keep working to meet our goals,” Cannon said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Our cargo input will increase (and) I would say, without a doubt, the single most important environmental crisis we face is climate change. We’re going to have to turn our attention to greenhouse gas emissions in the future.”
