The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the City of Los Angeles and the Port of Los Angeles, alleging it had allowed its tenant China Shipping to operate in violation of air quality mitigation measures that were mandated to be resolved under a 2008 Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
“The City and Port of Los Angeles have a legal duty to operate that terminal in a way that's compliant with the law and, in my view, if China Shipping doesn't have an interest in implementing the mitigation measures or can't, then the Port should find a tenant who can,” said Melissa Lin Perrella, senior director of NRDC’s Environmental Justice, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program. “To me, that should be the strategy whether it means the Port needs to spend more money to help China Shipping comply with the measures or find a new tenant.”
The complaint was filed in the Central District of Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach residents who blame the defendants for putting them at risk for harmful air pollutants.
“These communities face the region's highest cancer risk from air pollution and suffer from some of the highest asthma rates across the state,” wrote Attorney Gonzalo E. Rodriguez Gonzalez in the Sept. 16 complaint. “Sensitive groups, including children and the elderly face an increased risk from these dangerous air pollutants: exposure to air pollution impairs lung function and growth in children, and exacerbates chronic health conditions leading to premature death.”
The complaint alleges four causes of action that violate the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), including the failure to adequately disclose and analyze the terminal’s significant environmental effects and failure to require feasible mitigation measures to minimize significant environmental effects.
“The research is showing that communities that are overburdened by air pollution are the same ones that are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at higher rates,” Perrella told the Southern California Record. “So, not only are there existing serious health concerns in the Harbor area but we're seeing new concerns given COVID-19 and the port’s violations are just adding more injury to existing harm.”
In addition to the City of Los Angeles and the Port of Los Angeles, defendants named in the lawsuit are the public entities: the Los Angeles Board of Angeles and the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners. China Shipping is named as a real party in interest.
“The significant environmental effects from emissions generated by the operation of the terminal include trucks, ships, cargo handling equipment and some level of on-dock rail operations,” Perrella said in an interview.
China Shipping is not named as a defendant, according to Perrella, because it’s the City of Los Angeles that is the governing body of the Port of Los Angeles, which has allegedly violated CEQA.
“The legal document that we're talking about that represents a violation of the law is a city and port document, and that's the 2019 Final Supplemental EIR document, which sought to revise the dozen or so measures that had been previously reported in 2008,” Perrella said.