Author: Ship & Bunker
A recent audit has found that the TraPac terminal at the Port of Los Angeles in the U.S.has failed to meet a number of the city’s air quality improvement measures, including failing to ensure that cargo vessels plug into shore power while docked, local media reports.
Documents released under the California Public Records Act last week are said to have shown that only 53 percent of ships plugged into shore power at the TraPac terminal, falling short of the80 percent requirement.
Gene Seroka, executive director at the port, says that the failure to meet the requirements can be attributed to construction work and congestion related to labour disputes, which left more than 24 ships waiting outside the port, unable to connect to shore power.
Additionally, the backlog is said to have resulted in carriers chartering additional vessels to make deliveries from Asia, which were unable to utilise shore power at the port.
While TraPac did not comment on the audit findings, in a November letter, Scott Axelson, a vice president at TraPac, is said to have called the terminal’s failure to meet the shore power regulations a “one-time shortfall,” promising that the rules would be met in the future.
It is reported that the port also failed to meet a city requirement for all yard equipment used at the terminal to utilise Tier 4 diesel engines by 2014, with the port noting that only 105 of 135pieces of equipment met that standard in 2014.
TraPac has provided purchase orders indicating remaining yard equipment will be upgraded this year to meet the Tier 4 standard, says Seroka.
The terminal’s failure to meet air quality measures, which TraPac agreed to in a revised lease agreement in 2009, is said to have led some community groups and elected officials in recent months to push for third party oversight for the port.
Phillip Sanfield, a port spokesman, says that TraPac did not have to meet the shore power requirements until 2013, as it took the city several years to install the required infrastructure.
Seroka says he was encouraged to that the audit determined that the terminal was in compliance with all but three of the city’s 52 requirements, but noted that “it still shows there is work to be done.”
Port officials are reported to have admitted last fall that the China Shipping North America terminal, which along with the TraPac terminal handles one third of the port’s container throughput, had also failed to enforce similar measures.
The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex is said to remain the largest single contributor to air pollution in Southern California, even despite reductions in recent years.
In October, it was reported that the California Air Resource Board (CARB) had approved the use of an Advanced Environmental Group, LLC (AEG) exhaust gas scrubber alternative to shore power, known as the Advanced Maritime Emissions Control System (AMECS).
Ship & Bunker News Team
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