A future rendering of the SCIG rail project compared to its current facility, one of two large side-by-side railyards planning simultaneous expansions. Courtesy communitymatters.com.
3:23pm | The future of West Long Beach air quality hangs in the balance as Environmental Impact Reports are being developed simultaneously for two side-by-side railyards in the area.
Researchers and environmental groups called for both of them to utilize zero-emission operation in front of the Environmental, Tidelands and Harbor Committee on Tuesday afternoon.
A USC professor and the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) submitted separate presentations during a committee meeting yesterday, warning of increasingly dangerous air quality related to the local goods movement industry.
The AQMD is actually producing the EIR documents for the ICTF project, giving residents and environmental advocates hope that the organization’s call for cleaner operations will resonate with the railyards.
The Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF, operated by Union Pacific) facility is vital to ground shipping that sends cargo across the country once it’s brought into port at Long Beach or Los Angeles. The Southern California International Gateway (SCIG, operated by BNSF) facility does not yet exist but could equal the size of the new ICTF and proponents say will be important to booming trade.
But the ICTF currently contributes to air quality so poor that the area is known as the “Diesel Death Zone.” USC Professor of Preventive Medicine Andrea Hricko says that diesel emission levels at the ICTF are estimated to be the third worst of 18 railyards in California. Decades of high asthma rates and other health issues have left residents less than enthusiastic now about both railyards’ plans to expand their facilities and double current capacity. What will happen when the ICTF not only expands, but sees a nearly identical facility open up right beside it?
Representatives from both Union Pacific and BNSF declined an invitation to attend the committee hearing yesterday, saying that it would be premature to comment without its project plan completed. That didn’t stop several community residents, who spoke in a frustrated tone similar to those at a recent hearing of the Joint Powers Authority in October 2010.
Just at the ICTF, the railyard handles more than 750,000 containers per year and in anticipation of growing global trade, would like to increase that to more than 1.5 million with the expansion. To ease the sting, ICTF officials say their expansion/upgrade will reduce pollution by 75% once fully operational.
How much truth is in that promise? We won’t know for sure until the EIR is released, but you’ll forgive local residents for being a bit skeptical. The EIR has already been postponed for several years, and while a joint proposal with SCIG is expected to be released this Spring, it would come to no one’s surprise if the process is further delayed.
But some aren’t waiting around. Over the weekend, City Councilmember James Johnson and Harbor Commissioners Mario Cordero and Thomas Fields sent a letter to Union Pacific officials calling for a zero-emission option in the upcoming ICTF EIR. “Zero-emissions goods-movement technology represents a true paradigm shift, as we would be able to move goods quickly and efficiently to market without sacrificing the health of our neighborhoods,” the letter reads. They also pointed out several existing clean technologies that could be integrated into the expansion plan.
But comments made during Tuesday’s meeting made a zero-emissions future seem farther away. “It’s hard to take these quantum leaps,” said Dr. Robert Kanter, the Port of Long Beach Managing Director of Environmental Affairs and Planning. “You don’t one day have fossil fuels and the next day you’re totally free of pollutants.”
Dr. Kanter said that the port has adopted “transitional strategies” that will one day lead to a zero-emissions future, but for now, many environmentally-friendly technologies – including magnetic rail and electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles – are not options for a variety of reasons.
We would all agree that advancing toward a zero-emission future is a good thing, but until that dream is a reality there are those that will suffer through the transition.
One of the main battlegrounds in the debate, and a key point for those pushing the railyards toward zero emissions, is a local middle school.
Stephens Middle School sits less than 400 feet away from the ICTF. Six other schools are less than 0.5-mile from the facility. On one occasion, researchers from Hricko’s USC team counted 500 trucks driving on the Terminal Island Freeway in one hour, just feet away from the Hudson Elementary playground. The dangers of particulate matter, especially to children, are many and I’m sure that I don’t need to explain them here.
The Hricko presentation advised that any plans to expand railyards include alternative fuels and on-dock rail. “The Wilmington and West Long Beach neighbors already suffer disproportionate and cumulative impacts,” the study reads. Its tone is generally doubtful, even bitter, pointing out that the ICTF was expanded in 1986 with the promise that air pollution would not be significant, and that land at the Port that could be used for on-dock rail was unavailable. It’s easy to point out the similarities as ICTF officials are asking for trust on their 75% emissions reductions promise.
The AQMD closed their presentation with a call for the ports to get involved in forcing the railyards to clean up. It’s an issue that falls into the ports’ laps because, frankly, there isn’t much authoritative power over the railyards to force them to operate more efficiently. Councilmember Johnson and the Harbor Commissioners wrote a letter urging a zero-emissions policy because, frankly, there isn’t much more they can do. The AQMD made a case to the ports to set project approval conditions that must be met, since after all, the railyards are fully dependent on cargo coming into their docks.
The AQMD also advised the ports to commit to use 100% zero-emission practices to transport cargo to the ICTF by 2020. Lead by example, in other words.