And the San Pedro Harbor Area is still worse
LA did it again. We’re number one. But, “Being number one is not always a good thing. For the 23rd time in 24 years, the Los Angeles and Long Beach metro area had the worst smog in the country, ” said Joe Lyou, president and CEO of Coalition for Clean Air. “In their latest ‘State of the Air’ report, the American Lung Association found that this area had high ground-level ozone — known more commonly as smog — for 177.3 days on average from 2019 to 2021. The next worst was Visalia, which had 92.2 days. The more smog you breathe, the more likely you are to suffer from lung damage, asthma attacks, missed work days, missed school days, and a long list of other ailments. We have to do better.”
“Being number one for dirty ozone days is not a badge of honor,” said Earthjustice attorney Adrian Martinez.“We hope this year will finally break through to our air agencies that they need to move much faster in adopting regulations to advance zero-emission ports, railyards, warehousers, and factories as these agencies have affirmed that we must get to zero-emissions to breathe air that meets state and federal standards.”
The news was better regarding particle pollution, though not by much. LA/LongBeach ranked fourth worst for annual particle pollution and ninth worst for 24-hour particle pollution — F grades all around. California cities dominated all three measures: four of the top five, and six of the top 10 for both ozone and annual particle pollution, three out of the top five, and eight of the top 10 for 24-hour particle pollution. Only three lightly-populated California counties — Humboldt, Lake and Yolo — did not receive at least one F.
California isn’t alone. A “key finding” was that air quality is worsening in western vs. eastern states, especially for particulates. When they were first added to the report in 2004, only 44 of 106 counties with 24-hour Fs were in western states, compared to 103 out of 111 this year. Similarly, for annual particle pollution, the report notes, “In 2004, 20 of the 22 states with counties that got a failing grade were east of the Rockies. In 2023, all of the 17 failing counties were in 6 western states.”
Two other “key findings” are:
- One in three Americans live in a place with unhealthy air pollution.
• People of color are 3.7 times more likely than white people to live in a county with failing grades.
A day earlier, on April 19, a new report from the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College London, reviewing tens of thousands of studies, documented profound air pollution health impacts throughout the lifecycle, from delays in fetal growth to dementia and early death. “There is increasing evidence that impacts of air pollution are hiding in plain sight in the burden of chronic illness,” the report’s lead author, Dr. Gary Fuller, said. “These air pollution impacts affect our quality of life and have a large cost to society through additional health and social care costs, as well our ability to learn, work and contribute to society.”
Ed Avol, USC professor emeritus of public health, agreed.
“Decades of health effects research have repeatedly demonstrated the assorted linkages between air quality and human health. … Our air quality provides a toxic atmosphere to breathe at levels that researchers have reported are associated with a broad array of negative health consequences,” Avol said. “In addition to respiratory impacts, a growing body of research has begun to link air pollution exposures with a range of cognitive effects, from the ability of schoolchildren to focus on assigned tasks and learn, to acceleration of dementia and Alzheimer’s related challenges among older adults. Other chronic diseases such as diabetes and reproductive health issues such as sperm fertility, premature birth, birth complications, and low birth-weights have also all been associated with chronic air pollution exposure, so the region’s air quality most definitely impacts health across the lifestage!”
San Pedro Bay Ports
Things are even worse in the Harbor Area — though the report doesn’t break things down to that level. “On average, living and working in the Harbor Area in the midst of ongoing exposures associated with port operations increases individual exposures compared to others living in the metropolitan area,” Avol said. “The several MATES reports from the regional air agency has documented the increased carcinogenic risk associated with living in the port area — primarily due to diesel PM emission exposures — compared to the rest of the region.” Those living along highway corridors are also at higher risk.
“This report is just a reminder for all of us working towards cleaner air and climate justice that we need to do more,” said Sierra Club organizer Yassi Kavezade. “We can no longer afford the health costs of facing pollution.”
More is on the table — though not enough. The state air board has scheduled two major pollution-cutting measures for votes April 27 and 28: the Advanced Fleets Regulation, accelerating zero-emission truck markets, and the In-Use Locomotive Regulation, a multifaceted rule that phases out older locomotives, limits idling and includes a 2030s transition to zero-emission trains. Health benefits of the latter are projected to be $32 billion compared to industry costs of $16 billion.
The regional air board has two “indirect source rules” pending — one for railyards and one for ports — both of which may be finalized by the end of 2023. “These rules are the first of their kind to regulate these emissions in the South Coast region. So we’ve been working tirelessly on ensuring actual solutions that get to the root of pollution,” Kavezade explained. But a previous ISR dealing with warehouses is being challenged in federal court, and litigation could delay these rules as well.
And then there’s port truck pollution
“We have a low clean truck fund rate, right now it’s $10 per TEU,” Kavezade said. “That’s ridiculous! $10 is what you can barely buy a Starbucks drink nowadays, with some breakfast that goes with it. We need to be charging at least $50 for those container funds to support the zero emission project at the ports.” The benefits are huge: “Some trucks are as polluting as [much as] 200 individual cars.”
The inadequate funding is reflected in limited progress, with only a handful of zero-emission trucks in service so far.
“The port takes great pride in the percentage decrease in port operation emissions … compared to 2005 or 2006, at the time of the initiation of the first Clean Air Action Plan,” Avol noted. But “percentage decreases have dramatically declined since the first few years, and year-to-year emissions reductions for the past decade have been minimal.”
This is one of two examples he cites of the ports being “somewhat cavalier regarding transparency and acceptance of responsibility.” The other is POLA’s erratic record with its air monitoring network.
“The Port of LA environmental management team seems to have a cavalier approach to keeping its air monitors functioning properly,” says Andrea Hricko, professor emerita at USC Keck School of Medicine. “On April 20, 2023, four monitors at POLA were not functioning or awaiting repair/replacement,” she noted, adding, “The monitor that supposedly measures number of ultrafine particles [UFPs] at POLA is clearly also dysfunctional, but that has not ‘been caught or corrected’ by the port’s monitoring consultant.”
Typically the number of UFPs during the early morning at the POLA would be in the thousands, she noted, but “some measurements in January 2023 show numbers in the double digits … but the port’s consultant never seemed to notice, let alone flag the figures as faulty.”
Saving lives, improving public health takes new thinking.
“We need to think about air quality in a more urban land-use policy-based domain. Moving to a cleaner future more quickly is in our best health interests, but to accomplish that objective, we need to think more broadly,” Avol said. This includes using the cleanest fuels we can today and accelerating zero-emission conversion, but in addition, “We need to revise and revamp our communities to make it easier for people to get from home to shopping to recreation and around town without having to drive a emission-emitting vehicle,” he said. “We need to improve sustainability and resiliency in our communities with thoughtful construction containing increased insulation to reduce heating needs and tree-lined streets and shaded areas to reduce air conditioning needs. We need to provide workforce development for local residents to become proficient in the technologies and employment positions needed so that long commutes for basic service jobs with low pay can decline in employment significance.” And finally, “We need to make it safe for residents to walk around town through improved street safety practices such as improvements in neighborhood access and egress, denial of commercial trucks cutting through smaller streets and neighborhoods, and protected bike lanes to encourage safe bicycle use. All of these aspects and more need to be seriously discussed, filtered, optimized, prioritized, and enacted.”
Kavezade put it more bluntly.
“If we build green spaces, if we’re telling people to go outside and play, but the air is toxic, I don’t think we’re doing a benefit to our public health, we’re committing a harm,” she said. “Are we going to continue idling diesel engines and natural gas engines? Are we going to continue refining fuel at high concentrations that are spewing toxics while we’re telling kids to go play outside and build green spaces? That’s counterintuitive. So we need to do more in relating public health with how we are interacting with our environment, for sure — and how it relates to climate change as a whole.”