{"id":6038,"date":"2008-06-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/port-of-lb-middle-harbor-update\/"},"modified":"2008-06-25T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T10:00:00","slug":"port-of-lb-middle-harbor-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/port-of-lb-middle-harbor-update","title":{"rendered":"Port of LB Middle Harbor Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">Last Wednesday, June 18, I attended the second public hearing related to the environmental analysis documents for the Port of Long Beach Middle Harbor project. <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>There I learned that I need to correct something I wrote in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbpost.com\/newsdesk.php?id=271&amp;item=1245\"><font color=\"#800080\">my earlier column<\/font><\/a> after the first public hearing.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>The average number of daily truck trips from the completed terminal at full operation will rise to about 10,000 per day, compared with about 6,500 per day currently.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>I had the impression that truck trips would be reduced by 1,000 per day, but I believe this is the number of future daily truck trips that would be avoided due to the increased use of on-dock rail.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>However, it is true that the total emissions from terminal operations would be lower in the future even though capacity would be greater.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">Last Wednesday evening saw close to 100 people gathered in a very warm auditorium at Silverado Park in West Long Beach.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>I counted a total of 52 commenters, a handful of whom had also testified the previous week at City Hall (where it was much cooler!).<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Thirty-eight of the commenters were in favor of the project, including many Long Beach residents.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Five were clearly opposed, while nine gave the impression that they were neutral or unconvinced of the project&rsquo;s merits. <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>Among the commenters was Seventh District Councilmember and South Coast Air Quality Management District board member Tonia Reyes Uranga, who emphasized the community&rsquo;s concerns about air quality, especially in West Long Beach.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>She asked the port staff to keep construction impacts down and use the cleanest and &ldquo;greenest&rdquo; technology on the project.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>She also called for the development of community benefit programs for neighborhoods affected by the I-710 freeway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">Perhaps one of the most affecting comments came from a Long Beach resident and union member who is also the rail planner for one of the two existing terminals on the site.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>She overcame her nerves to say, &ldquo;I know what my rail can do,&rdquo; and observed that &ldquo;if we don&rsquo;t go in this direction Long Beach will be a dead-end city.&rdquo;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>She echoed the majority of other commenters in supporting the project.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\"><br \/><\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}