Bay Area dockworkers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 responded last month to an alarming health risk assessment released by the California Air Resources Board and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
By Paul Duclos
Published: May, 2008
We work and live in this community, said ILWU Local 10 President Melvin Mackay. We breathe the same dirty air on the docks that West Oakland residents do on their streets. We’re very concerned about the cancer and asthma risks that this study found. The shipping industry needs to take more steps to reduce its pollution.
The ILWU launched its Saving Lives campaign in January 2006 to encourage multinational ship-owning companies to reduce oceangoing vessel smokestack emissions by at least 20 percent by 2010 in port cities along the Pacific coast and nationwide. Ship and commercial watercraft engines pump more than 1.2 tons of fine particulate matter into Bay Area air every day, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and oceangoing container vessels produce more sulfur dioxide—a major air pollutant associated with respiratory diseases—than all of the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined.
The Oakland Board of Port Commissioners also took a bold step to address community and environmental concerns about impacts on air quality from its maritime operations. The seven-member board voted unanimously to adopt and implement a Maritime Air Quality Policy Statement and Early Actions to reduce air pollutant emissions and related health risk.
The policy provides funding mechanisms, including container fees, to generate $520 million over several years for maritime air pollution reduction initiatives and infrastructure improvements. Setting a fee structure will allow the port to qualify for matching state funds for these significant and groundbreaking projects. The specific amount of any container fees will be determined after further staff work and analysis is completed on the best approach, as well as on the economic and business impacts of such fees. The Port Commissioner Board directed staff to convene a public forum in late spring to consider the full spectrum of issues related to requiring that truckers entering the port be employees of trucking companies. Staff was also directed by the Board to hire a consultant to prepare a detailed report regarding an employee/trucker requirement by June 2008.
Even as the Port of Oakland cargo business grows, officials there say the port will dramatically cut air pollution. The risk reduction calculations will be determined using the Port’s 2005 seaport emissions inventory baseline.
Senior VP at Matson Steps Down
After a maritime career that spanned four decades, including 27 years with Matson Navigation Company, Gary North, senior vice president, Pacific has retired. North’s association with Matson dates back to 1967, when he started with the company as a cargo planner in Hawaii’s freight department. In the seventies and early eighties, he held management and, later, executive posts with Seatrain Lines and U.S. Lines. Vic Angoco has been promoted and will head the company’s operations in the Pacific.
