Haste Makes Waste?
POLA’s hurry-up project approval process raises alarms
The EcoCem low-carbon cement facility proposed for berths 191-194 sounds great on first hearing — it’s been estimated that cement production is responsible for approximately 8% of CO2 worldwide, and EcoCem is a leading producer of a low-carbon alternative that could help cut that dramatically — a perfect fit with the Port of LA’s cherished image as a “green port.”
But the devil’s in the details, and they include the almost certain presence of chromium-6, the cancercausing form of the heavy metal that gained notoriety with Erin Brokovich.
The 100-year old Portland cement plant in Davenport, just north of Santa Cruz — originally built to supply cement for the Panama Canal and Pearl Harbor — was shut down in 2010 when chromium-6 was found in concentrations up to 10 times normal atmospheric levels. That was five years after the Mexicobased manufacturing giant, Cemex, purchased the plant and modernized it to produce “green cement.”
Nor is the EcoCem project alone. Since November, it’s one of three industrial projects for which port staff have issued initial studies — studies whose adequacy has been broadly questioned. A fourth project, on waterfront development, has also been unveiled.
“They are not giving a sufficient analysis to these projects,” retired port attorney Pat Nave told Random
Lengths News. They were also released “with inadequate notice,” said Peter Warren, a member of San Pedro & Peninsula Homeowners Coalition. Both said that 30day comment periods are inadequate for a meaningful public comment process. And last-minute extensions are no substitute for adequate time in the first place.
As the mayoral primary election looms, there’s an eerie sense of déjà vu.
On March 28, 2001, in the closing days of the Riordan administration, the Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a 30-year lease with the China Shipping Company without doing any environmental review. Now, 21 years later — as the resulting lawsuit’s consequences are still being litigated — the port could be poised to make similar mistakes.
“It is obvious that the environmental department at the Port of Los Angeles is trying to get projects released and approved before a new group of commissioners and likely some top port officials are removed under the incoming new administration,” said Janet Gunter, one of three initial plaintiffs in the China Shipping lawsuit.
“This push to get projects approved with deficient environmental review could be extremely devastating for Harbor communities. I highly recommend that all environmental project reviews halt until after a new
mayor is elected,” Gunter said,.
Two other past mistakes are being repeated: the port is using misleading and/or inadequate project descriptions, and is potentially piecemealing projects to minimize analyzed environmental impacts.
Two of the studies substitute for full environmental impact reports, while the EcoCem study lays the foundations for an EIR, but doing so inadequately is a mistake, according Dr. Tom Campbell, who estimates he’s helped prepare or comment on close to 500 EIRs, and who called the EcoCem study’s project description “totally inadequate and incomplete.”
“EIRs kept me professionally busy for almost 40 years, so you might say I know a little bit about what I’m talking about,” Campbell told Random Lengths. “Do it right the first time. Don’t have to do it over and over again.”
An EcoCem subsidiary, Orcem, announced a similar project at the Port of Vallejo on June 12, 2014. But five years later, on May 24, 2019, they bowed out, deciding not to appeal a decision of the local planning commission. According to the North Bay Business Journal, objections were raised by the California Department of Justice, Bay Area Air Quality Management District and California State Lands Commission. Similar objections could be raised here as well.
“It’s largely a manufacturing process that has only one displaced terminal berth and that would basically stop any further development along Berths 192, 93, 94,” Campbell said. “It just doesn’t seem compatible with the designated function of a port.”
A multitude of questions and possibilities remain. For example, a berth could be used to ship cement to Northern California in order to serve the market the Vallejo plant was intended for. The existing project would then be a case of improper piecemealing. Rail could be used, rather than trucks, to significantly reduce traffic impacts—which the port claims it doesn’t have to analyze under the most recent statewide guidance. Chromium-6 is only one of many devils lurking in EcoCem’s details.
Crude Oil Expansion Project
The first of the projects, the Phillips 66 Marine Oil Terminal (Berths 148-151) was released for a 30-day comment period on Nov. 18, but it was repeatedly extended until finally closing on April 22.
“Disguised as an improvement project necessary for compliance with the State Lands Commission’s Marine Oil Terminal Engineering and Maintenance Standards (MOTEMS), in reality this is an expansion project that would nearly double crude oil throughput at the Phillips 66 terminal,” a group of eight national and local organizations wrote in their comments.
The doubling of fossil-fuel capacity for a period of up to 40 years clearly violates California policy to phase them out. The repeated extensions reflect both the inadequacy of the original comment period and the level of public outrage. But, according to Nave, repeated extensions do not allow for the kind of consultative public comment that neighborhood councils, for example, are supposed to have. Nave served as counsel to the elected charter reform commission that drafted the relevant city code.
“It says you have to give neighborhood councils a reasonable opportunity to comment,” Nave said. That means time to read and digest, pass through a subcommittee and come to a vote of the board—a roughly 90-day process.
Peter Warren made a similar point, with reference to the Port Community Advisory Committee (PCAC), established for precisely that purpose by Mayor James Hahn in 2001.
“PCAC should still be here doing all of these things, providing consulting through the subcommittee system to various community stakeholders so they could properly analyze and respond to these things,” Warren said. “It was disbanded for no good reason.”
The least stringent level of environmental review, a “negative declaration” was used for the John S. Gibson Container Parking Lot Project. Adding insult to injury, the 30-day comment period began on Dec. 16, 2021—just before Christmas, when people are least prepared to respond. (It was later expanded—by two weeks.)
“This project is proposed for land that has always been open space,” Gunter told Random Lengths. “Since nothing has ever been there, it clearly meets the highest threshold for a full environmental impact report.”
At the very least, “The negative declaration is premature,” Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council argued in its comments. “Several permits are required that may change the project description.”
The entire rational was faulty, they went on to argue:
“The most striking thing about the document is that it says, in a number of places, that there will be no negative environmental impacts because the developer will comply with ‘all applicable laws’.
“On its face, this approach would allow a negative declaration for any project.”
Dr. Campbell also commented, calling the study “totally inadequate and incomplete,” going into specific detail on everything from construc
tion plans (lack of “estimated cut/fill volumes, bulking, export of excess cut and import of suitable fill, and haul routes to/from the Project site”) to cultural, hydrological and seismic considerations.
“I cannot remember a project that had so many diverse groups on the same page opposing it,” Gunter said, including “neighborhood councils, environmental justice organizations, community activists, interested residents, including an ex-port attorney and ILWU Labor Unions 13, 63 and 94.”
West Harbor Amphitheater
Finally, on April 14, the port released an initial study for the West Harbor Modification Project, the latest incarnation for replacing Ports O’ Call. Most significantly, the earlier proposal for a 500-seat outdoor amphitheater has been dramatically expanded to 6,200 seats that would host “approximately 100 paid events per year, generally from April through November,” according to the Port. It “also could host smaller, local community, charity, and sponsored events year-round.”
Harbor Commissioner Diane Middleton was enthused. “No more drives to the Hollywood
Bowl or the Greek,” she wrote in an email. And Doug Epperhart, President of Coastal San Pedro, agreed, calling it “a very logical model” from a business standpoint. “The days of retail are gone,” he said. “People are going to come to the waterfront to eat, drink and be merry, and you know it looks like the eating and the drinking part is going to be provided for and now it’s the making merry that they’re looking to do.”
In addition, “You can actually have some benefit not only to the economy, but you know to the ecology of the place by providing entertainment closer to home,” Epperhart said. “The only real concern that I have heard is the noise aspect. The port seems to have at least tried to make a serious effort to figure out how they’re going to move traffic around.”
But at least this is going to be a full EIR, so there will be plenty of time for such concerns to be fully aired. And the final judgment will be made by a new administration.
It’s worth remembering that hurried approval of the China Shipping Terminal is still reverberating through the courts 21 years later. The port’s fumbled handling of its mitigation failures is subject to lawsuits waiting to be heard in San Diego later this year. So, it might be best for the Harbor Commission not to hurry things through once again.