Port Pollution Must Be Reduced

June 11, 2005

Oakland Tribune

by Tim CARMICHAEL and Margaret GORDON

THE Bay Area was under a microscope last weekend as world leaders visited for World Environment Day. However, one of the most serious challenges to our health, usually invisible, may have escaped their eyes: toxic air pollution from seaports and cargo movement. Cargo movement, locally and globally, relies heavily on dirty diesel engines, a major source of toxic air pollution. The problem grows every day. Diesel exhaust causes cancer, respiratory illnesses and even premature death. Every day, each diesel ship entering the Port of Oakland generates as much air pollution as 62,500 cars. Every day, some 11,000 diesel trucks serve the port and drive through Bay Area communities.

This number is expected to double — to 22,000 — in just five years, although our area is already the second most congested in the nation.

Too often, low-income families and/or communities of color live, work, play and breathe near the port and freeways. Wind also puts those living far from the port at risk.

Bay Area air is unsafe to breathe, says the state, because of cancer-inducing particulate matter and smog-forming emissions. Last year, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, we spent nearly $3.7 billion on health impacts from diesel pollution exposure, such as heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and premature death.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, he promised to cut air pollution in half by 2010. Today, it is still anyone's guess how he will do so. A promise alone won't improve the health of anyone living or working near freeways or ports.

The West Oakland community, for example, sits just a couple miles from the Port of Oakland, and is surrounded by not one, not two, but three freeways (580, 880 and 980). One out of every five children or adults in West Oakland has asthma, nearly 40 percent of residents has no health insurance, and the only neighborhood health clinic has limited hours of operation.

Port workers such as independent truck drivers, who make less money than all other truck drivers, drive old trucks that expose them to toxic, black, diesel fumes for over 12 hours each day.

The governor must support legislation to clean up the ports and have the Air Resources Board immediately develop measures to meet his 50 percent reduction promise.

Oakland can be a global leader for other port communities with the same problems. Cost-effective technology, such as cleaner fuels and engines, can be used to cut diesel pollution. And, instead of generating toxic diesel exhaust all day while at dock, ships can "plug-in" to docks to get power, without all the harmful pollution.

There is opportunity for action at the local level, too. The fate of 170 acres of land, under the city's control, remains up in the air. Oakland can and should use the Army Base redevelopment, through equitable land swaps and relocation incentives, to forever improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of hard-working citizens. Port-related industrial activities can and should be relocated to the port. Not again in our lifetime will we have such a chance to ensure that houses no longer share property lines with incinerators or chemical manufacturers.

Perhaps one day, the Bay Area can host world leaders and at the same time declare that our air is safe to breathe.

Tim Carmichael is president of the Coalition for Clean Air, and Margaret Gordon is the outreach organizer for the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project.