Environment
That shipping volume comes with a cost: air pollution. Container ships burning low-quality bunker fuel idle dockside because most have no capability to connect to shore-generated electricity. Diesel-powered semi-trailer trucks and locomotives idle while waiting to be loaded and unloaded. Truck, ship, and rail pollution coming from the ports were the largest source of air pollution in Southern California in 2006. The local air quality regulatory agency did a study that found that air pollution from the port is responsible for 2,000 cases of cancer per million people (25 per million is the upper limit sought by regulators). The 47 tons of nitrogen oxides generated daily by port marine vessels nearly equals the amount emitted by the 350 largest factories and refineries in the region, and that number is expected to increase 70% by 2022.
A $2.8 million Port of Los Angeles Clean Air Program (POLACAP) initiative was implemented by the Board of Harbor Commissioners in October 2002 for terminal and ship operations programs targeted at reducing polluting emissions from vessels and cargo handling equipment.
To accelerate implementation of emission reductions through the utilization of new and cleaner-burning equipment, the Port has allocated more than $52 million in additional funding for the POLACAP through 2008.
The port installed the first Alternate Marine Power in 2004, and can provide up to 40 MW of grid power to two cruise ships simultaneously at both 6.6 kV and 11 kV, as well as three container terminals, reducing pollution from ship engines.
In an effort to buffer the nearby community of Wilmington, Los Angeles from the port, in June 2011 the Wilmington Waterfront Park was opened.
Read more about this topic: Port Of Los Angeles
Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one’s decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one’s own true gifts. It involves thinking about one’s environment and deciding what one will and won’t accept.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)
“White males are the most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)