Posted on 04/20/2006 7:31:15 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
California's smog-fighting agency on Thursday approved a sweeping plan to reduce air pollution caused by the ports, rail lines and roadways that move goods around the state.
The Air Resources Board's plan sets out long-term goals and strategies to roll back air pollution levels from cargo movement to what they were five years ago. Diesel-related pollution alone would be reduced 85 percent.
With the amount of goods entering California ports expected to triple in 15 years, "now is the time to take action," board Chairman Robert F. Sawyer said during a public meeting.
"This problem did not occur overnight and it won't be resolved overnight, either," Sawyer said. "The emission reduction plan represents a starting point and a vision of where we need to be."
The board is under pressure to meet federal and state smog standards.
The plan suggests using a combination of new anti-pollution regulations and business incentives to get shipping companies, railroads and trucking companies to adopt cleaner fuel, engines and procedures.
Reducing pollution could eliminate 1,500 premature deaths statewide each year by 2020 along with thousands of cases of asthma and other health problems, ARB staff told the panel.
It will cost an estimated $6 billion to $10 billion to achieve the goals. To work, the plan will need guaranteed funding and approval of new federal regulations to govern pollution by oceangoing ships and interstate train traffic.
T. L. Garrett, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, urged the ARB to concentrate on market-based incentives to reduce ship pollution.
"The plan's approval was completely expected, and we'll continue to deal with it," Garrett said. "We do support the (ARB's) goals and acknowledge the need to reduce emission."
With Pacific Rim economies and imports growing, California's ports and cargo corridors are seeing increasing use and that has prompted concerns from nearby communities about the soot and smog spewed by container ships, locomotives and heavy diesel trucks.
Dr. John Miller, an emergency room physician who lives in San Pedro near the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors, the nation's busiest port complex, called his area a "diesel death zone."
"This problem is right now," he said.
The adjacent ports are the main hub for cargo to and from the Far East and handled more than $200 billion in trade last year.
Ships, which use high-sulfur fuel, have received little in the way of pollution regulation but by 2020 are expected to contribute 80 percent of the diesel pollution in the state, according to ARB staff.
The ARB plan is "a launch pad for action" to deal with that issue but only if the regulators follow through, said Martin Schlageter, campaign director for the California Coalition for Clean Air.
"Today is just about a document," he said. "Tomorrow will be about what regulations are they going to put on an industry that has been unregulated and has gotten a free ride on the backs of the health of Californians."
Cleanup strategies include convincing operators of ships to use onshore electrical power rather than running their engines to keep the lights burning in port. However, it would cost $500,000 to $1.5 million to convert each ship to have plug-in abilities, ARB staff said.
When I was doing diesel engine control system design I used to have to interact with CARB.
They are an absolutely unreasonable bunch of tree huggers.
They are the reason that small automotive diesels, which are very fuel efficient, are not doing so well in this country.
Europe is full of them: they work well and last forever.
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