Rescuing the Ports
Massive plan to stem pollution could create a truckers' utopia
By Greg Katz
Cleaning up the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the source of some of the region's worst and most far-reaching pollution, could also bring about an economic revolution akin to the advent of the defense industry in the 1950s. Thousands of poverty-wage, mostly immigrant workers could join the ranks of the middle class virtually overnight.
The economic revolution knocking at the door for nearly 17,000 truckers could even reverse some of the mayhem caused by globalization. "There was a radical shift back in the early '80s when these jobs went from good jobs to what they are today," said Jon Zerolnick, a researcher with Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and the lead author of a study on the economic benefits of cleaning up the port and turning $12-an-hour truckers' wages into $40,700-a-year jobs.
For more than a decade, reducing the chemical stew cooked up at the ports befuddled the region's top politicians and environmentalists, whose tiny steps of progress were lost in the march for rapid growth. The cost of decades of failure reached a staggering toll: 110 premature deaths caused by port traffic, 50,187 missed school days and 16,425 work loss days. One of the primary culprits: an aging, poorly maintained hodgepodge of some 16,000 big-rigs whose drivers are made so poor trying to keep up that they often become as much a burden as a benefit to society. Only 10 percent of truckers are estimated to have health insurance, forcing the rest to rely on government programs when they get sick.
A plan to reduce pollution and, at the same time, restore some of the economic principles in place before deregulation of the trucking industry in the 1980s, could be voted on by the end of the month at a joint meeting of the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor commissions. The Clean Trucks Program, part of the ports' Clean Air Action Plan, would shower trucking companies with millions of dollars to upgrade their trucks, with one catch: Drivers would no longer be independent contractors, but would become employees of the firms. The companies, with their deep pockets, would now be responsible for the upkeep of their trucks. It would not fall to the so-called independents trying to eke out a living. Some of the money to retrofit trucks would come from Proposition 1B, approved by voters last year.
"We have the opportunity to usher in the kind of threshold industry, similar to defense contracting, that so powerfully drove the economy and the California 'good life' for decades following World War II," writes USC professor Manuel Pastor, in the forward of LAANE's study.
The massive port cleanup plan is a cornerstone of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's environmental campaign. In 2005, the mayor named the folksy, straight-taking S. David Freeman, as chairman of the Harbor Commission, and charged him with bringing the powerful interests at the ports under control. Projections call for port shipments to triple in 20 years, but Freeman declared, "We're not going to grow unless we grow green." How the plan plays out in the months ahead will be crucial. Shipping industry and business interests are expected to try to delay much of the revolution in the courts or other arenas of public opinion.
"It's a new paradigm for the San Pedro bay ports," says Teresa Adams Lopez, the Port of Los Angeles' media relations director, who notes that the new model will be "somewhere in between" a union model, which she says is the prevailing system on the East Coast, and the current independent contractor system. "We are also hoping that by having the truckers become employees of concessionaires, that would even out and bring up the living standards for some of the truckers right now." Further, Adams Lopez remarks "a big, big percentage" of all independent truckers pass through the port regularly, so the change could have a substantial reach.
The ports' overview of their Clean Air Action Plan, released last year, calls for all drivers frequenting the San Pedro Bay to ultimately "at least earn the prevailing wage" and not rely on government aid to make ends meet. Adams Lopez would not say what exactly that wage would be.
It's unclear how many truckers actually apply for some $18,000-a-year that the LAANE study estimates they qualify for. Given that there are some 16,800 independent drivers that move cargo to and from the ports, the cost to taxpayers might exceed $134 million per year. However, according to the study, employee drivers make an average of $16.30 per hour, compared to $11.59 per hour for contractors. At the employee wage, drivers would make over $40,000 per year and would no longer qualify for poverty programs. (Whether these are the numbers the ports expect or hope for is unclear; Adams Lopez offered no comment on the report.)
If the ports can successfully mandate a changed system for truckers' employment, it will finally be on the road to reducing its enormous emissions; when taken together and including the ships, trucks and trains that frequent them, make the ports L.A. County's biggest fixed source of pollution.
"It's a huge first step," said Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, noting that "there appears to be a different mentality now." (In 2002, the NRDC won a lawsuit on grounds that the port was starting construction on a container complex for China Shipping without conducting an environmental review.)
But the Clean Air Action Plan still leaves much room for improvement, he says. "The limits of it: It's only a five-year plan, and when we talk about trade increase and pollution, we're talking about horizons that are far beyond five years. For example, when the state and local governments are planning how they're going to meet federal clean air standards, in terms of ozone they're talking 20 [to] 24. So we really need a long-term vision for how we're going to reduce pollution from the ports."
And, like other advocates for port cleanup, Martinez's optimism is cautious. "People are really waiting to see what the ports are going to do. And I think that once you take the pen away from the paper and start implementing these things, that's when the community and environmental groups will be watching to see how well the ports can execute their Clean Air Action Plan."
State Senator Jenny Oropeza, a longtime Long Beach resident and cancer survivor (though it wasn't lung cancer, the disease port emissions have made much more prevalent in the area, she points out), agrees. "In concept I am" supportive of the CAAP, she says, but notes that as far as carrying out the plan, the port's "work is still in progress."
In the meantime, the state legislature has taken up the battle as well with Senator Alan Lowenthal's SB 974. The bill would charge a fee for containers coming through the ports, splitting the revenue between improving rail service to the ports and exploring other options for greening the shipping hubs. It is expected to be up for a vote in the Assembly later this week; it has already passed the Senate. Oropeza calls the bill "good policy work," though conservatives think it will choke business at the port and Mayor Villaraigosa would rather use the fee's income to replace old bridges.
Oropeza hopes that the combined efforts of the ports and the state Legislature will mean substantial environmental improvements. "There's not one answer," she says. "There's a whole lot of answers that need to be put in place."
Published: 09/06/2007
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