Southern California poses both great environmental and public health challenges, and enormous possibilities for innovation, and leadership in a clean, sustainable goods movement system. Southern California is home to the neighboring Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which combined make up the 5th largest container port in the world, and by far the largest in the U.S. These ports represent the single largest source of air pollution in a region which has been classified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as in “extreme” non-compliance of federal air quality standards. The region is also a hotspot of carbon dioxide emissions as seen from global maps.
Furthermore, the Ports are the nexus of an expansive goods movement infrastructure in Southern California which also includes rail yards, truck distribution centers, massive warehousing complexes, and the development of a so-called “inland port” in the Riverside and San Bernardino counties connected to the seaside Ports by a system of rail, trucks, and intermodal facilities. Learn more about port pollution and Southern California.
The San Francisco Bay Area’s Port of Oakland is the third largest container port in California, the fourth largest container port in the U.S, and the gateway for international goods entering Northern California bound for other destinations. Not surprisingly, it is also the centerpiece of massive regional air pollution and climate-changing greenhouse gases.
Locally, the West Oakland community which is not only port-adjacent, but also bordered by three major freeways bears the brunt of the public health and environmental damages from the ports and goods movement system in the Bay Area. Like other port communities, West Oakland residents are impacted by sky-high asthma rates, cancer clusters, and other health damages, as well as by the noise, blight, and structural damages caused by the heavy vehicles and machinery that operate in or near their neighborhood. Learn more about port pollution and the San Francisco Bay area.
Harris County, Texas (which encircles the Houston/Sugar Land/Baytown metropolitan area) recently edged out Los Angeles County as the top carbon producing county in the U.S. This extreme carbon hotspot is largely the result of large-scale petroleum refineries and chemical processing. The Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) is also in federal clean air nonattainment status for 8-hour ground-level ozone.
The Port of Houston—which ranks first in the United States in foreign waterborne tonnage, second in the U.S. in total tonnage, and tenth in the world in total tonnage—and the area’s petroleum refineries, contribute to region’s environmental and health ills. Learn more about port pollution and the Houston metropolitan area.
Nationally, there seems to be an awakening of acknowledgement that all our infrastructures are broken or ailing, in desperate need of updating and repair, or are simply no longer sustainable. The new Administration will offer extraordinary opportunity for change. And PEOPLE can make a difference. It is a PRIME opportunity to make a different plan, to think about what we really need to build in our communities and across our country; all the scientists and experts agree - renewable energy in the United States is real right now and we have enough to build across the country in the next five years where 25% of our coal use could be shut down – within fifteen years we could end coal use in the United States and replace our diesel trucks with clean rail freight systems and a new workforce of green experts in goods movement. Learn more about port and goods movement pollution across the United States.
