National
Ports Initiative
EPA Subcommittee Seeks to Identify and Control Sources of Port Pollution
Across the United States more than 150 deep channel sea
ports serve our nation. These economic engines of commerce support hundreds of
thousands of jobs and act as the conduit for the import and export of essential
(and some not so essential) goods.
Across the West Coast, the major container
ports are slowly beginning to dig out from the backlog created during the ILWU
and PMA negotiations. Unfortunately, it will be months before the terminals will
be back to “normal” operations. But, for anyone in the port trucking community,
“normal” leaves much to be desired.
The labor slowdown merely highlighted issues that dray
men and women have endured for years; congestion, equipment shortages, extended
turn times all of which limit productivity and essentially cost everyone. With
the ports in the national spotlight as of late, it would only seem fitting that
the EPA would want to highlight the work it is doing via subcommittee to tackle
emissions at ports across the country. The overall effort is referred to as the National Port Initiative which will seek
to define emission and sources at ports across the country.Primarily the group is relying on the Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommittee Port Work Group to come up with strategies for regulatory development and enforcement, community engagement and identification of barriers to technology deployment and how to remove those barriers.
The subcommittee does mention voluntary actions for ports, but a voluntary program on the federal level can become a local mandate with the stroke of a pen. The first step is establishing emissions inventories or at least best practices; tactics will be recommended for reductions, and those ports with the most need for emissions reductions will need to embark on a program to reduce.
Granted, there are many different strategies that can be
deployed for emissions reductions within port complexes. It will be expected
however, that operational issues won’t be addressed and instead technology
forcing or behavior modification will be the driving force for emissions
reductions across the country.
See EPA Presentations here: http://westcoastcollaborative.org/files/webinar/2015-03-march-goods-movement.pdf
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