Largest US port complex passes plan to reach zero emissions

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The largest port complex in the nation has set goals to drastically reduce air pollution over the next several decades.

The plan approved Thursday at a meeting of the governing boards of the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach outlines strategies for improving equipment and efficiency to eventually move cargo with zero emissions.

The ports estimate that the cost of the efforts ranges from $7 billion to $14 billion, but the plan does not make clear who will pick up the tab. And detailed plans for implementing each program will require approval by each port's harbor commission.

"Collaboration will be critical to our success," Long Beach Harbor Commission President Lou Anne Bynum said in a statement. "Moving the needle to zero requires all of us — the ports, industry, regulatory agencies, environmental groups and our communities — to pool our energy, expertise and resources."

The plan has raised concerns that the enormous cost of the clean air goals could make the two ports less attractive in the face of competition from ports on the East and Gulf coasts.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Pacific Merchant Shipping Association President John McLaurin told commissioners he fears the cost "and its potential negative impacts on port competitiveness and the one in nine jobs in the Southern California region that are reliant on the ports."

The neighboring ports 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles are the single largest fixed source of air pollution in Southern California, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Main points of the plan include clean-engine milestones for trucks, creating incentives to speed up fleet turnover to near-zero and zero-emission trucks, and efficiency programs for truck reservations and staging yards. The timeline for achieving a zero-emission truck fleet is 2035.

Other elements include requiring terminal operators to use zero-emission equipment by 2020, if possible, or the cleanest available equipment.

The plan also pursues electrification of terminal equipment and expands on-dock rail, with a goal of moving 50 percent of all cargo out of the ports by train.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach sprawl over more than 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) of land and water. They handle about 40 percent of U.S. container import traffic, about 25 percent of total exports, and together rank as the ninth-largest port complex in the world, according to the ports.

Earth's ozone hole shrivels to smallest since 1988

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The ozone hole over Antarctica shrank to its smallest peak since 1988, NASA said Thursday.

The huge hole in Earth's protective ozone layer reached its maximum this year in September, and this year NASA said it was 7.6 million square miles wide (19.6 million square kilometers). The hole size shrinks after mid-September.

This year's maximum hole is more than twice as big as the United States, but it's 1.3 million square miles less than last year and 3.3 million square miles smaller than 2015.

Paul Newman, chief Earth scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said stormy conditions in the upper atmosphere warmed the air and kept chemicals chlorine and bromine from eating ozone. He said scientists haven't quite figured out why some years are stormier — and have smaller ozone holes — than others.

"It's really small this year. That's a good thing," Newman said.

Newman said this year's drop is mostly natural but is on top of a trend of smaller steady improvements likely from the banning of ozone-eating chemicals in a 1987 international treaty. The ozone hole hit its highest in 2000 at 11.5 million square miles (29.86 million square kilometers).

Ozone is a colorless combination of three oxygen atoms. High in the atmosphere, about 7 to 25 miles (11 to 40 kilometers) above the Earth, ozone shields Earth from ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.

Scientists at the United Nation a few years ago determined that without the 1987 treaty by 2030 there would have been an extra 2 million skin cancer cases. They said overall the ozone layer is beginning to recover because of the phase-out of chemicals used in refrigerants and aerosol cans.