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Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
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Creating A Greener Culture: The Im
■ By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER Long Beach Business Journal
Inside
4 – Clean Trucks, Clean Air 6 – Water Quality Initiatives: Transforming A Place Of Industry Into A Place Of Nature 8 – Green Building Standards: Going For The Gold 10 – The Mitigation Grants Program: Reducing Community Impacts 12 – Community Engagement: Giving, Education And Outreach 14 – Looking Forward: Creating An Evergreen Future
2 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
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f the Port of Long Beach’s vast array of environmental initiatives were to be traced back in lineage, their common ancestor would be the Green Port Policy in 2005. Since that time, the Port has worked both on its own and in tandem with the Long Beach community, the neighboring Port of Los Angeles and various state and federal agencies to implement policies to positively alter the regional environment for current and future generations. “I’m proud that the Port is going to be celebrating this year the 10th anniversary of the Green Port Policy,” Mayor Robert Garcia said at the recent State of the Port event. “I’m proud that the Port is working with the City to build a new Port headquarters and Civic Center complex here in downtown. I’m proud that the Port continues to lead and has listened to the call to increase internships and opportunity for young people throughout the City of Long Beach.” To date, the Port’s estimated contribution to green initiatives is more than $500 million. The policy outlines six points of focus, each with ambitious goals for reducing the Port’s environmental impacts: Air, Water, Soils and Sediments, Wildlife, Sustainability and Community Engagement. Since the Green Port Policy’s passage,
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he Impacts Of The Green Port Policy
“Everything we touch has an environmental component. Whatever we touch, we improve.” Jon Slangerup Chief Executive Port of Long Beach
the Port has gone on to establish programs in collaboration with the Port of L.A. that expand upon the policy’s goals and go beyond mandated environmental compliance standards. Such policies include the Clean Air Action Plan, the Clean Trucks Program and the Water Resource Action Plan. “Everything we touch has an environmental component. Whatever we touch, we improve,” Port of Long Beach Chief Executive Jon Slangerup said. “Environmental stewardship and economic sustainability are two sides of the same coin.” Since the Green Port Policy was established, diesel air pollution from mobile sources and machinery within the Port complex has been cut by 82 percent. As of 2013, smog-causing nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide have been reduced by 54 percent and 90 percent, respectively. A combination of efforts led to the massive reductions, including installing infrastructure for ships to plug into clean electric power rather than burning fuel, providing incentives for ships to slow down and burn less fuel when approaching the Port, expanding on-dock rail capacity to reduce the number of trucks on the road, and more. Plus, thanks to the Clean Trucks Program passed in 2008, truck-related emissions have been reduced by 90 percent. Water quality, too, has improved immensely. Due to consistent monitoring, an aggressive stormwater management program and contaminated sediment removal, the Port’s waters are the cleanest they have been in decades. “I am
amazed at the quality of the water,” Slangerup said, noting that when he was a child in California, the waters were much dirtier. “This is a clean harbor.” Since the Water Resource Action Plan was enacted in 2009, 100 percent of water quality samples taken within the Port now meet mandated standards – a 12 percent improvement from 2009. The Port has also invested considerable effort integrating sustainable technologies into its infrastructure. The Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project, an ongoing project combining two aging terminals into one modern facility, is perhaps the largest-scale example of these efforts. When completed, nearly the entire terminal will run on electric, zero-emission technology, including some of the world’s largest and cleanest cranes. “Middle Harbor is a world-class benchmark project,” Slangerup said. “At the end of the day, the Green Port Policy is all about the community,” Slangerup emphasized. In addition to trying to ensure a better future for local residents by cleaning up the environment at the Port, the Port’s outreach extends beyond its facilities and into the community via a variety of educational and community programs. To date, the Port has awarded about $18 million in mitigation grants to local schools and organizations to offset its impacts on the community. ■
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 3
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Clean Trucks, Clean Air
■ By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER Long Beach Business Journal
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The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles celebrated the official grand opening of the Clean Trucks Center at a press conference on August 22, 2008. Then-Mayor Bob Foster, left, was the keynote speaker. With him is Jim Hankla, who was president of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners.
4 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
n October 1, 2008, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles each implemented programs to address the second-largest source of air pollution (after ships) originating in the San Pedro Bay Port complex: trucks. Within three years, the Ports’ Clean Trucks programs resulted in a 90 percent reduction in air pollution from trucks, removing a significant amount of asthma-inducing and cancer-causing particulate matter from the air. The policy’s key component is a staggered schedule permanently banning older, more polluting trucks from entering the Ports. Beginning in 2008, all trucks dated pre-1989 were banned. In 2010, all trucks made in 1993 and prior were added to the ban, and newer trucks made between 1994 and 2003 were required to be equipped with special technology to reduce their diesel emissions. By 2012, all trucks not meeting the 2007 federal clean truck emission standard were banned. Trucks meeting that standard emit 80 percent less air pollution than older models. In creating the policy, both ports and their respective cities had a primary beneficiary in mind: the regional community. Former Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster,
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“We really changed the world. We changed the conversation as it relates to ports. Not only did we improve the environment in Long Beach, but we improved the environment of ports everywhere.” Jim Hankla Former President Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners
who held office from 2006 to 2014, emphasized that the policy is likely to have a positive impact on population health. “There is no doubt that the air is cleaner,” Foster said. “People are going to be healthier as a result. There will be fewer missed days of schools, fewer missed days of work, fewer asthma cases, and I think ultimately there will be lower incidences of cancer,” he reflected. “This is going to benefit the people around Long Beach in their health and in the money they spend for health care.” Although the policy had support in the community and in the city governments of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the road to creating the program wasn’t without its challenges, as Foster and former Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners President Jim Hankla pointed out. “Not everybody was for it,” Hankla recalled. “Many of the truckers weren’t for it. They were staring at a necessity to buy a newer truck, which would have some negative consequences for them in terms of their economics.” Vic La Rosa, president and CEO of Long Beach-based drayage and logistics company Total Transportation Services, Inc. (TTSI), said that initially there was an air of uncertainty within the trucking industry regarding the proposed Clean Trucks Program. “At the time, we really did not understand the magnitude of
the issue,” he recalled. But after he researched truck-related pollution and cleaner technologies, he was supportive of the program. “From the very beginning we have embraced the entire concept,” he said. “We were the first company to convert our entire fleet to clean diesel and then we brought on another 53 liquefied natural gas (LNG) trucks,” he added. Other trucking companies and distributors followed suit, buying up trucks meeting the 2007 standard even before the ban on previous models went into effect, Foster recalled. La Rosa estimated that the cumulative investment in cleaner technologies on the part of his industry was more than $1 billion. “Over 10,000 trucks were converted. On a daily basis you see the impact of the air quality,” he said. Despite parting ways with the Port of Los Angeles on a labor issue – Los Angeles wanted to include a mandate that truckers operating with its port had to be employees rather than contracted workers, which Long Beach did not support – the Port of Long Beach forged strong bonds with its neighboring port as each developed its Clean Trucks Program, Hankla recalled. “We really changed the world. We changed the conversation as it relates to ports,” Hankla said. “Not only did we improve the environment in Long Beach, but we improved the environment of ports everywhere.” ■
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 5
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Water Quality Initiatives: Transforming A Place Of Industry In
■ By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER Long Beach Business Journal
O
ver the past 23 years, the Port of Long Beach has invested $19 million in water quality improvement efforts ranging from stormwater management to removing contaminated sediment, implementing best management practices for pollution prevention, and revitalizing regional wetlands. The results have been manifold. Six years ago, 88 percent of all water column samples (a sample taken from a vertical portion of a body of water) met required standards; now, 100 percent of samples meet standard requirements. In 1998, soon after the Port began sediment pollution abatement efforts, fewer than half of sediment samples within the port complex met standards for levels of toxicity. In 2013, 83 percent of samples met standards. Additionally, the presence of the pesticide DDT and polychlorinated biphenyl, a synthetic organic compound found in coolants, has been steadily decreasing in mussels and fish found around the harbor area since 1980. Thanks in large part to the Port’s investments, the Long Beach harbor is now teeming with wildlife: sea lions, harbor seals, bottlenose dolphins, migratory birds, peregrine falcons, seabirds, lobster and an array of fish populate the waters and land within and around the Port. Dan Salas, owner of Harbor Breeze Cruises, a Long Beach-based company offering daily wildlife harbor tours, has been an up-close witness to the improve-
6 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
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“We’re always looking for going beyond compliance. That’s just built within our culture – and I think that culture changed with the Green Port Policy.” Rick Cameron Managing Director of Planning and Environmental Compliance Port of Long Beach
ry Into A Place Of Nature ments accomplished by the Port of Long Beach over the years. When Salas began working on boats in and around the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in 1976 when he was 12 years old, wildlife in the area was something of a rarity. “We would catch a few fish but they were few and far between. Matter of fact, back then we never saw a sea lion and rarely a dolphin inside the harbor,” he recalled. At the time, it was common practice for boat captains to “pump their wastewater right into the harbor,” he noted. The picture Salas paints of the harbor today is very different. “The water surrounding the Port of Long Beach has completely changed,” he said. Tourists aboard Harbor Breeze Cruises regularly spot bottlenose dolphins, sea lions and many other animals. In the past year, Salas and his team have witnessed “double the amount of whales from the prior year right off the coast of Long Beach and Los Angeles.” Fish and lobster have become so plentiful that recreational and commercial fishermen are regularly fishing in the harbor, he added. Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific, has paid close attention to the improving habitat in local waters over the past decade or so. “The improvement in the water quality and in marine life is quite remarkable,” he said, attributing improvements to requirements put in place by the federal Clean Water Act of 1972 as well as the Port’s efforts.
Recent Port investments in stormwater management infrastructure can be seen on West Anaheim Street, where new tree planters and swales catch pollutants before they enter storm drains. Another primary contribution to the improvement in water quality was the removal by the Port of contaminated sediment left behind from years of industrial activities, including by the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1997, Cameron said. A few years ago, the Port finished up a project to remove contaminated sediment found in former Navy-occupied areas of the Port. “We took the sediment out of the marine environment and beneficially reused it in a sustainable way in one of our development projects,” he explained. This practice has been used in other sediment cleanup projects as well. Equally important to these major investments are what Cameron called “the simple things,” such as using street sweepers with vacuuming technology rather than brushes and regularly keeping an eye out around the Port complex to ensure best practices are being followed. Since partnering with the Port of Los Angeles in 2009 to develop the Water Resources Action Plan, which outlines the measures and programs both ports plan to pursue to improve water and sediment quality, the Port of Long Beach has continued to expand these programs.
Port Took Lead
Moving Forward
Fostering nature in a place dominated by industry has required strategic planning and initiatives to prevent water pollution and reverse damage done to the aquatic environment in years past. Even before the Port of Long Beach became known as The Green Port, it was working to improve water quality. When provisions of the 1972 Clean Water Act required the Port and its tenants to implement stricter stormwater control standards in 1992, the Port assumed leadership, according to Rick Cameron, managing director of planning and environmental compliance for the Port. Port staff educated tenants about common pollutants and helped them identify which of their business practices to alter, Cameron said. The majority of pollutants entering the harbor through stormwater are metals released from brake pads of vehicles in the Port area, as well as oil and grease from both mobile and industrial equipment sources, according to Cameron. In addition to educating tenants about “simple things” such as ensuring that trash cans have lids to prevent trash from blowing into the water, the Port invested in new infrastructure that exceeded mandated standards. At Pier G, the Port’s dry bulk facility that regularly receives shipments of products such as petroleum coke, coal and sulfur, the Port partnered with Metropolitan Stevedoring Company to develop special technology to capture and prevent pollution. The result was a 1-million-gallon tank storage system to collect stormwater, treat it, and reuse it in a sprinkling system that wets the dusty materials, thereby preventing dust and contaminated stormwater runoff. “It is very sustainable,” Cameron said.
With billions of dollars of capital improvement projects underway at the Port of Long Beach, Port staff has opportunities to continue integrating the latest stormwater management technologies into its core infrastructure, Cameron emphasized. The Port’s environmental planning team has been working with engineering staff to create design guidelines that exceed current and upcoming mandated water quality standards, he noted. To ensure that the Port’s achievements in improving water quality are maintained and further improved upon, the Harbor Department needs to work with other city’s departments located upriver from Long Beach, Cameron said. “It’s hard, because we could be doing a really great job spending millions of dollars and be very diligent and responsible, but we’re talking about a major flow of water coming down the L.A. River and Dominguez Channel into the harbor complex,” he said. “We know that we are going to have that responsibility [to improve water quality], but then how do we make sure that there are also metrics for improvement of the watershed that is coming down the L.A. River? . . . We need to think about what our role is in that, how we can help facilitate a good discussion about finding good projects and, then, more importantly, how we can be collaborative in finding funding opportunities.” Cameron reflected, “We’re always looking for going beyond compliance. That’s just built within our culture – and I think that culture changed with the Green Port Policy.” ■
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 7
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Green Building Standards: Going Fo
■ By APRIL ECONOMIDES Long Beach Business Journal
“One of the things I’m very involved with is how we can build better bridges, roads, energy systems, waste water treatment systems and other types of infrastructure.” Doug Sereno Program Management Director Engineering Services Bureau Port of Long Beach
8 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
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hen the City of Long Beach decided to adopt Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building standards 12 years ago, the Port of Long Beach was immediately on board. Two years later, the Port decided to aim even higher, going above the City’s required minimum. Today, the Port’s green development actions include 11 buildings that are either LEED Certified or awaiting certification, helping write national guidelines for green port infrastructure, and more sustainable roads and landscaping in areas near the Harbor District. In March 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) unveiled a certification system for commercial, institutional and residential buildings to encourage increased environmental, health and economic performance. LEED standards have four tiers: Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum. They can be applied to new developments or renovations. (Since 2000, the USGBC has added the additional categories of Interior Design and Construction, and Neighborhood Development.) LEED buildings see improved employee health and performance, lower energy and water costs, and increased building value and higher lease rates. According to the USGBC, at least 88 of the 100 Fortune companies in the U.S. have LEED buildings.
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ng For The Gold
The City of Long Beach adopted these USGBC standards in 2003, requiring all new municipal buildings more than 7,500 square feet, as well as renovated municipal buildings, to be LEED Certified. As part of its Green Port Policy development in 2005, the Port staff decided to do more than simply comply, but to aim higher – to go for the Gold – whenever possible. “The Port actually helped develop the City’s ordinance,” Doug Sereno, an engineer and the program management director for the Port who leads the Port’s green building efforts, said. “When the city was developing it, we participated in the meetings and indicated we would support it without question.” The Port currently has six LEED buildings: • Joint Command and Control Center (Silver, completed in 2009) • Pier G Operations Building (Gold, 2012) • Pier G Administration Building (Gold, 2012) • Pier G Maintenance and Repair Facility (Gold, 2012) • Pier G West Arrivals Building (Gold, 2012) • Maintenance Facilities (Gold, 2014) These Middle Harbor facilities are currently seeking LEED Gold status: • North Operations and IT Management Building • Auxiliary Maintenance Facility • Marine Operations Building • Power/Crane Maintenance Shop • South (Main) Administration Building In addition, the Port’s future administration building will be located in the
Long Beach Civic Center development, which is aiming for LEED Platinum. “If we can get to Platinum, we want to always do that,” Sereno said. One of the main green construction practices the Port employs is reusing demolition materials from one project to another. This not only saves money but results in fewer trucks on the 710 Freeway since new materials don’t need to be trucked in. Other green practices include optimizing water and energy use, using cleaner fuels in construction equipment, improving indoor air quality, and planting drought-tolerant landscaping. In talking about the Middle Harbor’s maintenance building, currently awaiting Gold certification, Sereno said, “What’s unusual here is that we’re achieving Gold levels with a maintenance building, not an office building. Maintenance buildings aren’t normally rated with the LEED system because it’s more difficult with openair buildings, which have more energy loss. But we were able to design it with a certain level of efficiency. We’ve accomplished something really unique.” The efficiencies include cooling and heating vents near employee workstations (versus, for example, on the ceiling), and a 375-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system on the roof, expected to provide 15 percent of the building’s energy. “One of the things I like the most about our maintenance building, though, is the xeriscaping (drought-tolerant plants) and bioswales (natural stormwater filtration) we included,” Sereno said. “It shows how you can be good, do good and look good all at the same time.” The Port is also breaking new ground with green infrastructure. “One of the things I’m very involved with is how we can build better bridges, roads, energy systems, waste water treatment systems and other types of infrastructure,” Sereno said. “We’ve been involved in the Envision [sustainable infrastructure] rating system – it’s a corollary with LEED. Horizontal infrastructure is the next big horizon.” One of the Port’s projects is the construction of the replacement for the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which will include a 12-foot-wide separated bike and pedestrian path on the south side of the bridge, with three overlook areas. Under Sereno’s leadership, the Port developed its own sustainability guidelines for infrastructure since few precedents existed. The American Association of Port Authorities ended up using the Port’s guidelines as the basis for its West Coast Ports Sustainable Design and Construction Guidelines. Sereno said an example of green infrastructure is reusing the asphalt and concrete from a terminal demolition. “Back in 2005, when we did the whole Green Port Policy, I didn’t know anything about what sustainability was,” Sereno said. In 2014, Sereno was appointed the chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ sustainability committee. The Port is also involved in road infrastructure projects outside of its Harbor District that are heavily traveled by trucks coming to and from the Port. Lee Peterson, media relations specialist for the Port, said, “West Anaheim Street had some of the worst roads, largely because there are many cargo trucks that take a toll on the pavement.” To remedy this, the Port partnered with the City’s public works department on the West Anaheim Street Improvement Project. The City contributed the new street design and some of the financing. “Instead of just repaving,” Peterson said, “it was an opportunity to add in things like landscaping, new and widened sidewalks and crosswalk timers. Because the Port has a goal of improving areas to not only be utilitarian but also sustainable, we worked with the City to install LED street lights to save on electricity and a traffic monitoring system that’s built right into the roads so the lights adjust with traffic levels.” The new landscaping, which includes drought-tolerant plants and bioswales, requires less maintenance and water, thereby saving taxpayers’ money. “West Anaheim Street is now a better entry way for people coming into Long Beach from the west,” Peterson said. “Maybe folks will be more likely to stop now and spend money at the businesses along that route.” ■
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 9
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The Mitigation Grants Program: Re
■ By APRIL ECONOMIDES Long Beach Business Journal
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Rick Cameron is the managing director of Planning and Environmental Compliance for the Port of Long Beach, and Heather Tomley is the Port’s Director of Environmental Planning.
10 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
n 2009, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved the Port’s Community Mitigation Grants Program to mitigate air pollution produced from new development in the Port. Although the Port is constructing very “green” buildings and infrastructure – its new buildings adhere to U.S. Green Building Council standards and the Port is helping write green guidelines for the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System – its new developments still have cumulative negative air impacts. This grant program helps mitigate those impacts and prioritizes funding in the communities hit hardest by Port activities, namely near the 710 Freeway and in West Long Beach. “The Community Mitigation Grants Program has been one of the most innovative and rewarding ways in which the Port of Long Beach has reduced air pollution impacts while partnering with worthy community organizations and other city departments,” Doug Drummond, president of the Board of Harbor Commissioners, said. “We’ve made grant awards for asthma vans, air filters in grade school classrooms, electric cars, solar panels and many other technologies that will not only reduce pollution but save money in the long run for the grant recipients.” The program awards grants under three categories: schools and related sites; health care and senior facilities; and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction. Projects that reduce GHG emissions, such as the solar installations,
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m: Reducing Community Impacts
electric vehicles and native gardens, demonstrate the most measurable cost savings from reduced energy, water and garden maintenance costs. Diseases caused by air pollution also have a price tag both in dollars and in reduced quality of life. Most of the grants to schools fund air filtration units at grammar schools, day care centers and park facilities with kids’ programming, to help remove harmful pollutants that cause asthma and other ailments. Funding to health care facilities also funds air filters, and money given to senior centers provides diagnostic equipment for asthma and cardiopulmonary illnesses. Nearly $18 million has been awarded to date – just under $15 million in 2010 and 2011 from the Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project and nearly $3 million in 2013 from the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project. Project selections were made by an advisory committee comprised of three members of the public selected by former Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, representatives from the California Air Resources Board and South Coast Air Quality Management District and representatives of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. The committee made recommendations to staff, and staff brought the recommendations to the Board of Harbor Commissioners for approval. Christine Houston, manager of sustainable practices for the Port, said that in keeping with the Port’s commitment to transparent community engagement, the whole process was very transparent. Because grant funding is linked to the impacts of specific development projects, new funding becomes available after a project is approved and permitted. If the Pier B Rail Yard Project is approved without opposition, which would happen in 2016 or 2017, the Port will solicit for grant projects shortly thereafter. ■
“The Community Mitigation Grants Program has been one of the most innovative and rewarding ways in which the Port of Long Beach has reduced air pollution impacts while partnering with worthy community organizations and other city departments.” Doug Drummond President Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 11
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Community Engagement: Giving, Ed
■ By APRIL ECONOMIDES Contributing Writer
T
he Port of Long Beach’s Green Port Policy has six pillars and, according to Rick Cameron, managing director of planning and environmental compliance, the most important is Community Engagement. The other five – Wildlife, Air, Water, Soils/Sediment and Sustainability – cannot be genuinely achieved, he said, without a firm foundation of public involvement. “The Green Port Policy wasn’t just a policy but a culture change,” Cameron said. “It imbedded environmental commitment and transparency throughout the organization and changed how we engage with the public.” It also rebranded the Port’s identity to “The Green Port.” The Pier J South project – which was put on hold in 2003 due to air quality and other concerns – was the turning point. “It was the pivotal fork in the road,” Cameron said. “It highlighted how our responsibility stretches far outside the confines of the Port to the Greater Long Beach community – and it changed how we’d go on to develop future projects. We took a timeout. We had to figure out how to really open up our doors and engage with the community.” Cameron believes the Port has established a foundation of trust. “There’s no agency that contacts the Port and doesn’t get the straight story or have the ability to come into the Port and get the information they need,” he said. “We may agree to disagree on issues, but it’s not a question of transparency.”
12 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
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“The Port is an integral part of the community fabric. We work here, we live here and we love the city.” Michael Gold Director of Communications and Community Relations Port of Long Beach
g, Education And Outreach
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Toward that end, the Port reports on its progress via its website, social media, press conferences and community events. At last week’s State of the Port event, it announced its intention to become the world’s first zero emission port. Middle Harbor was the first project that embodied the Port’s new way of analyzing environmental impacts and building trust with multiple stakeholders. “The project has really good mitigation, but we went beyond that,” Cameron said. “It’s partially because community and environmental groups said, ‘That’s great for 10 years from now, but what about today?’” This prompted the Port to expand its charitable giving so the community also receives immediate benefits. In addition to its Green Port initiatives and improved community engagement (not to mention supporting more than 30,000 jobs within Long Beach – one-eighth of the city’s jobs – generating $5.6 billion a year in state and local tax revenues and bringing consumers an array of goods from other countries), the Port now contributes approximately $1 million a year to Long Beach schools, charitable organizations and community events. The Port’s community investments reach all nine Long Beach City Council Districts and seemingly every type of cause, including the Veterans Day Parade, Long Beach Marathon, Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, health efforts, historic preservation, the arts, social justice organizations, community festivals and many more. The Port also makes possible the summertime Movies on the Beach and Concerts in the Park. Michael Gold, director of communications and community relations, said, “The Port is an integral part of the community fabric. We work here, we live here and we love the city. We also recognize we have a big impact on the community, so we contribute through signature events and grassroots community efforts.” The Port’s outreach also involves educating the community about the economic benefits of the Port and international trade in general. As part of this effort, the Port offers four harbor tours a month (April-October) and regularly has tables at community events. It also engages Long Beach public school students. To ensure that as many Portrelated jobs as possible go to Long Beach high school and college graduates, the Port has awarded nearly $500,000 in scholarships to Long Beach-area high school seniors and college students pursuing a career in international trade since 1993. The high school scholarships are $1,000 to $8,000 each. In addition, the Port offers 25 internships a year to high school seniors and 20 to college students. “The unique thing about the high school internships is they’re all paid,” Gold said. “And we’re responding to the mayor’s call to double the number of internships within the next two years, both at the Port and in the community.” The best example of the Port’s integration into local education is probably its influence on school curricula. In partnership with the Long Beach Unified School District, the Port developed lesson plans for middle and high school classes. Using real-life port examples, students learn how algebra, geometry, physics and economics are part of international trade. For example, the video “Julio’s New Ride,” created for 12th grade economics students, illustrates how teenagers around the world are connected by international products, like Japanese-made cars and American-made sneakers. ■
Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing • 13
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Looking Forward: Creating An Ev
■ By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER Long Beach Business Journal
“We have got so many exciting things to do yet that will get us closer to our ultimate goal, which is becoming the zero emission Port.” Jon Slangerup Chief Executive Port of Long Beach
14 • Port of Long Beach Greening and Growing
A
s the Port of Long Beach celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Green Port Policy, Chief Executive Jon Slangerup is marking the start of a new era for the Port with a far-reaching and ambitious plan to operate at zero emissions on a self-sustained grid of energy-generating infrastructure – a concept he calls Energy Island. “Our concept of Energy Island is an opportunity to install a fully integrated, gridconnected self-generation of energy using all forms of the latest proven technologies,” Slangerup said. That means the Port would need to generate enough energy to meet its peak demand, which equates to about 300 megawatts. The Port’s needs, combined with those of the Long Beach community, make up 11 percent of the demand for energy from Southern California Edison, Slangerup noted. The goal is for the Port, using the cleanest and greenest technologies, to be able to generate enough of its own energy to remain operational during a catastrophic event, Slangerup explained. He hopes to meet that goal within the next 10 years. Although the word “island” implies isolation, that isn’t the case, Slangerup emphasized. The Port wouldn’t be disconnected from Southern California Edison’s energy grid – quite the contrary. “We want to send all of our surplus energy, all green, into the grid,” he said. Ideally, in the event of a disaster the Port would also be able to sustain key city services such as fire, police and even hospitals.
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In addition to experimenting with emerging technologies, the Port as an Energy Island will be powered by proven technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells and natural gas, Slangerup said. Wind turbines are perhaps the largest of these infrastructures, as many are typically needed to generate enough energy to make a dent in supply. So where would they go? “I see wind turbines dotting the landscape in the water out by the breakwater, where, by the way, the wind regime is excellent,” Slangerup said. Solar panels are already present throughout the Port on its newest buildings
changes,” he said. In addition to seeking funding from “the usual suspects,” the Port may have access to grants from the U.S. departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Energy and even the Environmental Protection Agency, he speculated. “I would like to have the project team in place in 2015 to move this forward. And in late 2016 or fiscal year 2017, I would actually like to be installing the infrastructure in the first phase,” he said.
Investing In New Technologies As the Port moves ahead with Slangerup’s ambitious Energy Island plan, it will continue to invest in clean technologies for use in and around the Port via the Technology Advancement Program (TAP), a joint effort with the Port of Los Angeles. Since its establishment in 2007, TAP has provided about $3 million in funding towards innovations every year. Two current projects the ports have contributed funding to through TAP are poised to address the largest sources of pollution within the harbor complex: ships and trucks. Although the Port is working to implement shore power for ships to plug into, rather than burning fuel while at berth, not all vessels are going to be good candidates for shore power, Port of Long Beach Director of Environmental Planning Heather Tomley pointed out. Some ships serve a trade route that includes ports without the stringent restrictions placed on air emissions in California, and for that reason their owners may not want to invest in cleaner technology. To address these ships, a new Advanced Maritime Emissions Control System (AMECS) is in development, partially thanks to funding from the TAP program. “The AMECS is on a barge, and it has got this duct system that connects to the exhaust stack of a vessel. It routes all of the emissions into a system that is on the barge, and treats the emissions right there,” Tomley said. With AMECS barges able to go out to ships not only within the Port but at anchor in the harbor, theoretically all emissions from ships coming into the local ports could be captured, Slangerup said. AMECS is “inches away from the goal line in terms of full certification,” Slangerup said. “We are now working out how the Port can support the AMECS technology to the commercial stage,” he added. To address pollution created by trucks, TAP is contributing funding to a test run of new technology that runs on an overhead catenary system to electrically power trucks. A single mile test-strip of the system outfitted with overhead wires for electric and hybrid trucks is in the permitting stages, Tomley said. The system would work by outfitting electric-compatible trucks with a movable pantograph system – technology that lifts up when underneath the catenary system to touch the wires and access electric power, she explained. Ideally the system would allow trucks to use zero emission electric power over longer distances, which is sometimes difficult with limited battery power. Slangerup reflected, “We have got so many exciting things to do yet that will get us closer to our ultimate goal, which is becoming the zero emission Port.” ■
An Evergreen Future
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and, as the Port continues to expand and update its infrastructure, more will be installed, Slangerup said. Creating a grid of stationary fuel cells, devices that convert chemical energy from fuel into electricity, is a newer venture for the Port. Unlike batteries, fuel cells are able to continuously generate power as long as they have a supply of natural gas, a clean source of fuel. In addition to powering the Port with fuel cells, Slangerup envisions creating natural gas fueling depots for a new class of dual fuel ships visiting the Port. Dual fuel ships are able to run on traditional fuels, like diesel, in addition to the cleaner liquefied natural gas. “We have customers that currently have dual fuel ships already being retrofitted that call regularly on our Port,” Slangerup said. He hopes to begin creating fueling stations for these ships within the Port complex in 2016. In envisioning the Port as an Energy Island, Slangerup did not neglect another consideration for weathering disasters – a source of clean water. “Energy Island also includes desalination plants so we have clean water being generated with our own self-sustaining energy source so that even in a catastrophic outage of the grid we can still be providing water to the citizens,” he said. Creating the self-sustaining infrastructure Slangerup envisions is likely to come with a big price tag, but he is confident the Port will have a variety of funding sources available. “This opens up a whole different set of opportunities around funding, because if you think about Energy Island from a homeland security perspective, and given that we are a designated military port . . . suddenly the game
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