Ports to Consider Update to Clean Air Action Plan

The governing boards of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will hold a joint public meeting Nov. 2 to consider approving the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) 2017 Update, which contains far-reaching strategies to further reduce air emissions and support the state’s vision for more sustainable freight movement.

The meeting will be held at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 2 at the Crowne Plaza Los Angeles Harbor Hotel, 601 S. Palos Verdes St., San Pedro, 90731. It will also be broadcast live online at polb.com/webcast and portoflosanangeles.org. The final CAAP document will be available at least one week before the joint board meeting, on both port websites and cleanairactionplan.org.

Environmental teams from both ports have developed the update over the last two years, incorporating input from dozens of meetings with industry, regulatory, community and environmental stakeholders. The CAAP, adopted in 2006, was intended to be periodically updated. The first update was approved in 2010. The CAAP 2017 Update aims to reduce emissions from all sources that move cargo, including through the deployment of near-zero emission trucks and cargo-handling equipment, and the expansion of programs that reduce ship pollution.

According to the latest annual inventories, the two ports’ comprehensive clean air programs since 2005 have eliminated 87 percent of diesel particulate matter, cut nitrogen oxides by 56 percent, reduced sulfur oxides by 97 percent and decreased greenhouse gases more than 18 percent. The results reflect the ports’ efforts to work with stakeholders to aggressively reduce pollution from the ships, trucks, trains, cargo-handling equipment and harbor craft that operate in and around the ports.

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