Long Awaited Bill to Clean Up Health Damaging Pollution from California’s Ports Expected to Land Soon on Governor’s Desk

Assemblyman Bill Maze (R-Visalia) commented that the legislature should focus on the budget, as there are “bigger issues” at hand, and this bill should wait.

“Political pressure for he future is fine, but I’m talking about right now,” said Assemblyman Warren T. Furutani. “We have to do something about it now.” Furutani, though his district does not contain any of the ports at issue in the bill, said that all the goods that come to the ports move through his district. His district contains the 710, 110, 405, 91, Terminal Islands, and Alameda Corridor Freeways, as well as the railways from the Union Pacific Yard that haul goods from the port. Of particular concern for Furutani were the eight West Long Beach elementary schools that are east of the Terminal Island Freeways. If it isn’t the pollution coming directly from the container diesel trucks that settle above the local area, Furutani said the prevailing winds blow pollution across and over residential areas.

I had the opportunity to talk to Furutani. He is concerned about children that, without access to proper health care, are developing asthma. He said, “When you go to the doctor, pills and inhalers are prescribed. They don’t cure asthma, but they help you live with it, deal with it. Young parents that may not have health insurance, given the socio-economic demographic of the area, don’t go to the hospital. Children go untreated.”

Aside from the port clean up and air quality control measures stipulated in the language of the bill, if it is signed by the Governor, Furutani is interested in seeing the generated revenue going towards a health clinic in the immediate area. He said the clinic would ideally provide the community free access to inhalers and medication for children afflicted with respiratory complications attributed to carcinogenic pollution.

Assemblywoman Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach) is also concerned for her community, as both the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach are located in her district. “The ports are very necessary and a lot of work and good things go on,” she said. “But the thing is that people only see those benefits and they don’t live close enough to see the cost.” The cost Karnette is speaking of is the combination of transportation problems in the immediate, port area and the overwhelming health risks from polluted air quality. “Problems with traffic from trucks and pollution are raised at every meeting and town hall,” she said. “Especially from parents with kids near the freeways.”

Karnette said the ports impact the traffic along the freeways; the ever-present fleet of diesel trucks makes it difficult for her community to get to and from doctors appointments, work, and dropping off and picking up their kids from school. And with all the pollution from those diesel trucks that congest the freeways, Karnette and her community are concerned about the health risks children are incurring. “Local doctors at children’s clinics are very concerned about asthma with the children,” she said.

Senator Alan S. Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) offers the most emphatic account for the condition of the Long Beach community, as affected by the ports’ pollution. He recalled his first being elected to Long Beach City Council in 1992, and that when he spoke to his constituents they were quick to ask one question: what’s the deal with the black soot on the window sills and the clothes when we hang them outside? This began his commitment to cover the pure-carbon residual by-product produced from petroleum refinement, called petroleum coke, at various plants in the heavily industrial bend that runs through his district. Later, Lowenthal learned that it’s not just the open coke polluting the air in his district, but the diesel particulates from the big rig trucks and the ships at the ports.

He said six years ago, the South Coast Air Quality Management Department issued a study that reported that 1200 to 2100 deaths per million in his area are attributed to carcinogen-particular health risks. The average, acceptable figure is 330 deaths per million, which makes his “diesel death zone”, as he said his community refers to it, roughly five to six times greater in risk than it ought to be. “My community is frightened and angry and wants action,” he said. “My residents are dying, and that’s not fair. Moving goods like this has made this area the tailpipe of the nation, and if you’re going to use the ports you should have to pay your share to clean up the air and get congestion off the freeway.”

And while other legislators, whose districts are far off and away from the polluted, damaged port areas, may not be able to grasp the local impact of unkempt ports, Lowenthal said, “We can’t be using 19th century technology to move these 21st century goods at the expense of the communities impacted. [Many of the residents] near the freeways have no option to move and are constantly caught up with pollution and congestion and it has to change and the way you do it is by cleaning up the mess.”

In responding to arguments advanced in the vein of Maze’s standpoint, Lowenthal commented, “The time is now, the more delay the more expensive it will be. We can’t even handle the amount of goods coming in now because of congestion and pollution, and in the next 10-15 years we’re supposed to expect our ports to triple in economic activity.” Simply put, Lowenthal concluded, “This is a bill the community wants desperately. This is a killer, and it has to be fixed now.”

Assemblyman Sandré Swanson (D-Oakland) recalled that as a youth, growing up in West Oakland, he never considered the economic importance to his neighborhood being so close to the ports. He also said he never considered in his formative years the overwhelming effects of the pollution from the port on his community. Swanson said it shouldn’t be that unsuspecting children, playing in the schoolyards and walking to and from school, suffer from port pollution that can be mitigated. His district includes the Port of Oakland, and the community closest to the port is predominantly low income and consists mostly of racial minorities.

Swanson, along with Furutani, Karnette, and Lowenthal from these affected areas offer what needs to be remembered when it comes to public policy decisions in Sacramento: Real people and their health are at stake. Though the bill is anticipated to receive the Governor’s signature, Furutani said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Kyle Samia is a student at the University of California at San Diego who writes for the California Progress Report as part of an academic internship program with the University of California at Sacramento journalism program this summer.