West Oaklanders and the Port of Oakland may have a new chance to clean up the air in the asthma-plagued neighborhood, now that a U.S. District Court Judge upheld the right of the Port of Los Angeles to implement a Clean Truck Program.
 
Though already facing an appeal, the Court’s ruling late Friday on Los Angeles’ innovative Clean Truck Program has been greeted as likely to serve as legal precedent, paving the way for ports elsewhere to cut diesel emissions by regulating the trucking fleets serving their ports.
 
“It’s really positive that the judge ruled in favor of Port of Los Angeles,” said Valerie Lapin, director of the Oakland Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports. “It will definitely have an impact in Oakland because Oakland was considering adopting a program similar to L.A.
 
“We need to do this as soon as possible. People are literally dying – choking on this pollution that causes asthma and cancer,” she added.
 
In the West Oakland neighborhoods surrounding the port, one in five children has asthma and residents have an average life expectancy that is 10 years shorter than the average life expectancy of their neighbors about six miles to the Northeast, according to Alameda County Health Department and American Lung Association testimonies. About 2,000 trucks come and go from the port regularly or almost daily, hauling $2 billion in annual trade.
 
The Port of Los Angeles – which is even bigger – managed to reduce diesel particulate matter pollution by 85 percent by implementing its Clean Truck Program. Through the program, the port subsidized the replacement of 6,000 old diesel trucks with new cleaner burning and alternative energy trucks. It also required that those trucks and others bringing cargo to the port be driven by truckers who are employees of trucking companies. That requirement shifted the burden of maintaining trucks to companies and away from individual truckers who typically are low wage earners with little money left for maintenance and retrofits.
 
The Port of Oakland, too, has been trying to reduce particulate emissions. It set up a Comprehensive Truck Management Program last year, offering grants to replace or retrofit 1,500 trucks and a Maritime Air Quality Improvement Plan.
 
“It takes in the specific needs of the Port of Oakland business, environmental and community stakeholders,” said port spokeswoman Marilyn Sandifur. It meets the mandates of the California Air Resources Board, she said. She was more cautious about what the Los Angeles ruling could mean.
 
“It's unclear at this time how long it will take for the Port of Los Angeles case to be adjudicated and what impacts, if any, there will be at other ports since the American Trucking Associations is reportedly planning to appeal this latest decision,” she said. The Port of Oakland would monitor the situation.
 
In the surrounding West Oakland neighborhood, one in five children has asthma and adults live 10 years shorter, on average, than their counterparts a few miles northeast.  Many succumb to cancer, which is twice as prevalent in West Oakland as elsewhere in the Bay Area, according to the county health department.
 
But many people say the program doesn’t go far enough, in large part because it does not require that trucking companies maintain the trucks and hire truckers as employees. Without those provisions, critics say, there’s no guarantee that clean running trucks will be entering the port.
 
“I got a grant of $18,000 to retrofit my truck, but after four months, the engine blew out,” said Porsirio Diaz. He can’t afford to fix it, he said, with his wages that work out to be about $14 an hour without benefits.
 
Christine Cordero, program coordinator of the Coalition for Environmental Health, said the comprehensive truck management program “is a good first step, but not as effective as it could be.” She too said the high asthma and cancer rates cry out for stronger measures.
 
“The higher asthma and cancer rates map directly over the I-880 corridor ramps serving the Port of Oakland” she said, referring to the highway ramps that lead to the port and the neighborhoods next to those ramps.
 
At the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, officials were not in a rush to say Oakland should follow Los Angeles.
 
“The ruling does provide the Port of Oakland some good options for maintenance of trucks we have put in place and it looks like it affords them options to add tariffs,” said Damien Breen, director of strategic incentives at the Air Quality Management district. But he added “We’ve done kind of a good job in having to address the issues out there.”
 
“We want cleaner air in the West Oakland Community. How that is provided is up to the port to decide,” he said.