Environmental justice takes a hit in Oakland’s port plan

So much for environmental justice in one of the Bay Area’s most liberal cities.

Port of Oakland officials are downplaying pollution concerns as they chase up to $60 million of profits from a planned new terminal for sand and aggregate shipments that would foul the air of nearby residents.

The adjacent West Oakland neighborhood is already disproportionately impacted by poor environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Residents have higher exposure to diesel particulate matter than 98% of Californians, proportionately more asthma that 97% of the state and proportionately more low-birth-weight babies than 83% of the state.

While port officials have significantly reduced pollution at their 1,300-acre operation, they are backsliding with the latest plan, dismissing the concerns of residents, two regional agencies and the state Attorney General’s Office. If this plan can’t be altered to negate the negative effects on the nearby neighborhood, it should be dropped.

For decades, the Oakland port has focused exclusively on container shipments arriving and departing in 20-foot-long, enclosed metal shipping containers. About 85% of those ships now shut off engines and hook up to electrical power when docked — a key step for reducing air emissions.

But, to fill some vacant berths, port officials now plan to lease 18 acres about a half-mile from the Bay Bridge toll plaza to Eagle Rock Aggregates for an open-air bulk sand and aggregate marine terminal. It would replace the company’s smaller facility at the Port of Richmond.

The 48 ships arriving with 2.5 million tons of material annually from Canada would not be equipped to hook up to onshore electrical power supplies. And the loose cargo, which would be unloaded from ship hulls on conveyer belts, would be stacked in three uncovered round piles, each about four stories tall with diameters greater than the length of a football field.

The lease would last for 12 years — netting the port after expenses between $43 million and $60 million — with two possible extensions that could add 15 more years to the deal. The port board is scheduled to vote on the deal on Feb. 24.

Port officials seem hellbent on pushing ahead despite concerns about dust from the piles and dangerous nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions from the ships, tug boats that would guide them and trucks that would haul the material from the dock to Bay Area plants to use in making concrete.

The environmental review of the project, commissioned by the port, has drawn an unusual chorus of sharp criticism from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the state Attorney General’s Office.

Meanwhile, a prominent law firm representing West Oakland’s resident-led environmental-justice organization has submitted a scathing critique of the project and environmental review — a critique that seems a likely precursor to litigation.

If this lands in court, with the port defending the project’s environmental impact on West Oakland, it would be an embarrassment to the port commissioners — and certainly to Mayor Libby Schaaf, who nominated them, and the City Council members, who appointed them. The notion that Oakland city officials are the defenders of environmental justice they claim to be would crumble.

Even the port’s environmental review concludes that nitrogen oxide emissions for the project would exceed the air district’s thresholds. The solution, port officials say, is to purchase emission-reduction credits that would go toward lowering pollution elsewhere.

Of course, that would do nothing to mitigate the impact on the already environmentally overburdened West Oakland community. The air district has told port officials that such offsets should only be used if other options for reducing the pollution were not available.

But there are other options. Enclosing the massive piles so dust won’t blow off them. Requiring shore power or equivalent emission capturing equipment for the ships. Requiring electric or zeroemission trucks to haul the aggregate.

The port is planning to implement some of those options, but only on a limited basis or more slowly than other public agencies are asking. It won’t be enough to eliminate the negative environmental impacts on West Oakland.

Port officials reject other options, such as the enclosure of the piles. Their reticence comes down to money. They say the options are too costly to make a deal with Eagle Rock pencil out.

But if the deal can’t be environmentally friendly to West Oakland and cost-effective for the port, then it should be rejected. Nearby residents shouldn’t have to endure additional pollution.